* 

3.3o./^oc. 

'                              PRINCETON,    N.   J.                                 <Jf 

i 

Purchased   by  the 
Mrs.   Robert   Lenox   Kennedy  Church   History  Func 

J. 

i 
1 

1 

BX    9941    .H36    1899 
Hanson,    J.    W.    1823-1901. 
Universalism,    the  prevailin 
doctrine  of   the  Christian 

Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2009  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


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UNIVERSALISM 
IN  THE  EARLY  CHURCH. 


UNIVERSALISM 


PREVAILING  DOCTRINE 


CHRISTIAN    CHURCH 


DURING  ITS  FIRST 


FIVE  HUNDRED  YEARS 


V 

By  J.  W.  HANSON,  D.  D. 


o  ©cos   irdvTa   iv  Tracriv — /  Corinthians,  xt.  28. 


Boston  and  Chicago 

UNIVERSALIS!  PUBLISHING  HOUSE 

1899 


Copyright. 

UNIVERSALIST  PUBLISHING  HOUSE. 

A.  D.  1899. 


CONTENTS. 


Introduction. 

Page. 

I  The  Earliest  Creeds 5 

II  Early  Christianity  a  Cheerful  Religion     -        •  17 

III  Origin  of  Endless  Punishment     -        -        .  36 

IV  Doctrines  of  Mitigation  and  of  Reserve           -  53 
V  Two  Kindred  Topics 61 

VI  The  Apostles'  Immediate  Successors        -        -  70 

VII  Three  Gnostic  Sects qo 

VIII  The  Sibylline  Oracles g6 

IX  PantEenus  and  Clement          ....  jq-, 

X  Origen 129 

XI  Origen — Continued 165 

XII  The  Eulogists  of  Or-gen            -        -        -        -  181 

XIII  A  Third  Century  Group         -         .         .         .  jgg 

XIV  Minor  Authorities 200 

XV  Gregory  Nazianzen 211 

XVI  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  and  the  Nestorians    -  216 

XVII  A  Notable  Family          -        -        .        .        .  226 

XVIII  Additional  Authorities        -        -        .        .        .  244 

XIX  The  Deterioration  of  Christian  Thought     -  260 

XX  Augustine — Deterioration  Continued        -        -  271 

XXI  Unsuccessful  Attempts  to  Suppress  Universalism  282 

XXII  The  Eclipse  of  Universalism        -        -        -  296 

XXIII  Summary  of  Conclusions        -        -        .        .  ^04 

V 


To 

^£b.  J.  <S.  arauttodl,  g.  i. 

AS  A  TOKEN  OF    FRIENDSHIP  OF    MANY  YEARS  DURATION,  AND 
AS  A  MERITED,  THOUGH  AN  INADEQUATE   RECOGNITION 
OF    LIFE-LONG  AND   VALUABLE   SERVICE   REN- 
DERED  TO   THE    GREAT  TRUTH  TO  WHICH 
THIS  BOOK  IS  DEVOTED,  IT  IS  AFFEC- 
TIONATELY   INSCRIBED   BY 
THE    AUTHOR. 


FOREWORDS. 


The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  present  some  of  the  evi- 
dence of  the  prevalence  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  Chris 
tian  church,  of  the  doctrine  of  the  final  holiness  of  all  man- 
kind. The  author  has  endeavored  to  give  the  language  of 
the  early  Christians,  rather  than  to  paraphrase  their  words,  or 
state  their  sentiments  in  his  own  language.  He  has  also 
somewhat  copiously  quoted  the  statements  of  modern  schol- 
ars, historians  and  critics,  of  all  shades  of  opinion,  instead  of 
condensing  them  with  his  own  pen. 

The  large  number  of  extracts  which  this  course  necessi- 
tates gives  his  pages  a  somewhat  mosaic  appearance,  but  he 
has  preferred  to  sacrifice  mere  literary  form  to  what  seems 
larger  utility. 

He  has  aimed  to  present  irrefragable  proofs  that  the  doc- 
trine of  Universal  Salvation  was  the  prevalent  sentiment  of 
the  primitive  Christian  church.  He  believes  his  investigation 
has  been  somewhat  thorough,  for  he  has  endeavored  to  con- 
sult not  only  all  the  fathers  themselves,  but  the  most  distin- 
guished modern  writers  who  have  considered  the  subject. 

The  first  form  of  his  manuscript  contained  a  thousand 
copious  notes,  with  citations  of  original  Greek  and  Latin, 
but  such  an  array  was  thought  by  judicious  friends  too 
formidable  to  attract  the  average  reader,  as  well  as  too 
voluminous,  and  he  has  therefore  retained  only  a  fraction  of 
the  notes  he  had  prepared. 

The    opinions    of    Christians    in    the    first    few    centuries 
ix 


X  FOREWORDS. 

should  predispose  us  to  believe  in  their  truthfulness,  inas- 
much as  they  were  nearest  to  the  divine  Fountain  of  our  re- 
ligion. The  doctrine  of  Universal  Salvation  was  nowhere 
taught  until  they  inculcated  it.  Where  could  they  have 
obtained  it  but  from  the  source  whence  they  claim  to  have 
derived  it — the  New  Testament? 

The  author  believes  that  the  following  pages  show  that 
Universal  Restitution  was  the  faith  of  the  early  Christians 
for  at  least  the  First  Five  Hundred  Years  of  the  Christian 
Era.  J.  W.  Hanson. 

Chicago,  October,  iSgg. 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  surviving  writings  of  the  Christian  Fathers, 
of  the  first  four  or  five  centuries  of  the  Christian  Era, 
abound  in  evidences  of  the  prevalence  of  the  doc- 
trine of  universal  salvation  during  those  years.  This 
important  fact  in  the  history  of  Christian  eschatol- 
ogy  was  first  brought  out  prominently  in  a  volume, 
very  valuable,  and  for  its  time  very  thorough:  Hosea 
Ballou's  "Ancient  History  of  Universalism,"  (Bos- 
ton, 1828,  1842,  1872).  Dr.  Ballou's  work  has  well 
been  called  "light  in  a  dark  place,"  but  the  quota- 
tions he  makes  are  but  a  fraction  of  what  subsequent 
researches  have  discovered.  Referring  to  Dr.  Bal- 
lou's third  edition  with  "Notes"  by  the  Rev.  A.  St. 
John  Chambre,  A.  M.,  and  T.  J.  Sawyer,  D.D. 
(i872),T.  B.Thayer,  D.D.,  observes  in  the  Universal- 
ist  Quarterly,  April,  1872:  "As  regards  the  addi- 
tions to  the  work  by  the  editors,  we  must  say  that 
they  are  not  as  numerous  nor  as  extensive  as  we  had 
hoped  they  might  be.  It  would  seem  as  if  the 
studies  of  our  own  scholars  for  more  than  forty 
years  since  the  first  edition,  and  the  many  new  and 
elaborate  works  on  the  history  of  the  church  and  its 
doctrines  by  eminent  theologians  and  critics,  should 
have  furnished  more  witnesses  to  the  truth,  and 
larger  extracts  from  the  early  literature  of  the 
church,  than  are  found  in  the  'Notes.'     With  the  ex- 


2      UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

ception  of  three  or  four  of  them  no  important  addi- 
tion is  made  to  the  contents  of  the  work.  If  the 
Notes  are  to  be  considered  as  final,  or  the  last  glean- 
ings of  the  field,  it  shows  how  thoroughly  Dr.  Bal- 
LOU  did  his  work,  notwithstanding  the  poverty  of 
his  resources,  and  the  many  and  great  disadvantages 
attending  his  first  efforts.  But  we  cannot  help  think- 
ing that  something  remains  still  to  be  said  respect- 
ing some  of  the  apostolic  fathers  and  Chrysostom, 
Augustine  and  others;  as  well  as  concerning  the 
gnostic  sects,  the  report  of  whose  opinions,  it  must 
be  remembered,  comes  to  us  mostly  from  their  ene- 
mies, or  at  least  those  not  friendly  to  them."  The 
want  here  indicated  this  volume  aims  to  supply. 

Dr.  Ballou's  work  was  followed  in  1878  by  Dr. 
Edward  Beecher's  "History  of  the  Doctrine  of 
Future  Retribution,"  a  most  truthful  and  candid 
volume,  which  adds  much  valuable  material  to  that 
contained  in  Dr.  Ballou's  work.  About  the  same 
time  Canon  Farrar  published  "Eternal  Hope" 
(1878),  and  "Mercy  and  Judgment"(  1881 ), containing 
additional  testimony  showing  that  many  of  the  Christ- 
ian writers  in  the  centuries  immediately  following 
our  Lord  and  his  apostles,  were  Universalists.  In 
addition  to  these  a  contribution  to  the  literature  of 
the  subject  was  made  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Allin,  a 
clergyman  of  the  English  Episcopal  Church,  in  a 
work  entitled  "Universalism  Asserted."  Mr.  Allin 
was  led  to  his  study  of  the  patristic  literature  by  find- 
ing a  copy  of  Dr.  Ballou's  work  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum. Incited  by  its  contents  he  microscopically 
searched  the  fathers,  and  found  many  valuable 
statements   that   incontestably  pro\'e  that   the  most 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

and  the  best  of  the  successors  of  the  apostles  incul- 
cated the  doctrine  of  universal  salvation.  The  de- 
fects of  Mr.  Allin's  very  scholarly  work,  from  this 
writer's  standpoint  are,  that  he  writes  as  an  Episco- 
palian, merely  from  the  view-point  of  the  Nicene 
creed,  to  show  by  the  example  of  the  patristic 
writers  that  one  can  remain  an  Episcopalian  and 
cherish  the  hope  of  universal  salvation;  and  that  he 
regards  the  doctrine  as  only  a  hope,  and  not  a  dis- 
tinct teaching  of  the  Christian  religion.  Meanwhile, 
the  fact  of  the  early  prevalence  of  the  doctrine  has 
been  brought  out  incidentally  in  such  works  as  the 
"Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography,"  Farrar's 
"Lives  of  the  Fathers,"  and  other  books,  the  salient 
statements  and  facts  in  all  which  will  be  found  in 
these  pages,  which  show  that  the  most  and  best  and 
ablest  of  the  early  fathers  found  the  deliverance  of 
all  mankind  from  sin  and  sorrow  specifically  revealed 
in  the  Christian  Scriptures.  The  author  has  not  only 
quoted  the  words  of  the  fathers  themselves,  but  he 
has  studiously  endeavored,  instead  of  his  own  words, 
to  reproduce  the  language  of  historians,  biographers, 
critics,  scholars,  and  other  writers  of  all  schools  of 
thought,  and  to  demonstrate  by  these  irrefragable 
testimonies  that  Universalism  was  the  primitive 
Christianity. 

The  quotations,  index,  and  other  references  indi- 
cated by  foot  notes,  will  show  the  reader  that  a  large 
number  of  volumes  has  been  consulted,  and  it  is 
believed  by  the  author  thai  no  important  work  in  the 
copious  literature  of  the  theme  has  been  omitted. 

The  plan  of  this  work  does  not  contemplate  the 
presentation   of  the  Scriptural    evidence — which  to 


4      UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Universalists  is  demonstrative — that  our  Lord  and 
his  apostles  taught  the  final  and  universal  prevalence 
of  holiness  and  happiness.  That  work  is  thoroughly 
done  in  a  library  of  volumes  in  the  literature  of  the 
Universalist  Church.  Neither  is  it  the  purpose 
of  the  author  of  this  book  to  write  a  history  of  the 
doctrine;  but  his  sole  object  is  to  show  that  those 
who  obtained  their  religion  almost  directly  from  the 
lips  of  its  author,  understood  it  to  teach  the  doctrine 
of  universal  salvation. 

Not  only  are  copious  citations  given  from  the 
ancient  Universalists  themselves,  but  abstracts  and 
compendiums  of  their  opinions,  and  testimonials  as 
to  their  scholarship  and  saintliness,  are  presented 
from  the  most  eminent  authors  who  have  written  of 
them.  No  equal  number  of  the  church's  early  saints 
has  ever  received  such  glowing  eulogies  from  so 
many  scholars  and  critics  as  the  ancient  Universalists 
have  extorted  from  such  authors  as  Socrates,  Ne- 
ander,  mosheim,  huet,  dorner,  dietelmaikr, 
Beecher,  Schaff,  Plumptre,  Bigg,  Farrar,  Bun- 
sen,  Cave,  Westcott,  Robertson,  Butler,  Allen, 
De  Pressense,  Gieseler,  Lardner,  Hagenbach, 
Blunt,  and  others,  not  professed  Universalists. 
Their  eulogies  found  in  these  pages  would  alone  jus- 
tify the  publication  of  this  volume. 


UNIVERSALISM 
IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 


I. 

THE  EARLIEST  CREEDS. 

An  examination  of  the  earliest  Christian  creeds 
and  declarations  of  Christian  opinion  discloses  the 
fact  that  no  formulary  of  Christian 
Teaching  of  the  belief  for  several  centuries  after 
Twelve  Apostles.  Christ  contained  anything  incompati- 
ble with  the  broad  faith  of  the  Gos- 
pel— the  universal  redemption  of  mankind  from  sin. 
The  earliest  of  all  the  documents  pertaining  to  this 
subject  is  the  "Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles."  ^ 
This  work  was  discovered  in  manuscript  in  the 
library  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  in  Constantinople,  by 
Philotheos  Bryennios,  and  published  in  1875.  It 
was  bound  with  Chrysostom's  "Synopsis  of  the 
Works  of  the  Old  Testament,"  the  "Epistle  of  Bar- 
nabas," A.  D.  70-120 — two  epistles  of  Clement,  and 
less  important  works.  The  ' '  Teaching"  was  quoted 
by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  by  Eusebius  and  by  Ath- 
ANASius,  so  that  it  must  have  been  recognized  as  early 
as  A.  D.   200.     It   was   undoubtedly  composed   be- 

'AIAAXH  TUN  AflAEKA  AHOSTOAfiN. 
5 


6     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

tween  A.  D.  120  and  160.  An  American  edition  of 
the  Greek  text  and  an  English  translation  were  pub- 
lished in  New  York  in  1884,  with  notes  by  Roswell 
D.  Hitchcock  and  Francis  Brown,  professors  in 
Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  from  which 
we  quote.  It  is  entirely  silent  on  the  duration  of 
punishment.  It  describes  the  two  ways  of  life  and 
death,  in  its  sixteen  chapters,  and  indicates  the  re- 
wards and  the  penalties  of  the  good  way  and  of  the 
evil  way  as  any  Universalist  would  do — as  Origen 
and  Basil  did.  God  is  thanked  for  giving  spiritual 
food  and  drink  and  "  aeonian  life."  The  last  chap- 
ter exhorts  Christians  to  watch  against  the  terrors 
and  judgments  that  shall  come  "when  the  earth 
shall  be  given  unto  his  (the  world  deceiver's)  hands. 
Then  all  created  men  shall  come  into  the  fire  of 
trial,  and  many  shall  be  made  to  stumble  and  per- 
ish. But  they  that  endure  in  their  faith  shall  be 
saved  from  this  curse.  And  then  shall  appear  the 
signs  of  the  truth ;  first,  the  sign  of  an  opening  in 
heaven ;  then  the  sign  of  the  trumpet's  sound ;  and, 
thirdly,  the  resurrection  from  the  dead,  yet  not  of 
all,  but  as  it  hath  been  said :  '  The  Lord  will  come 
and  all  his  saints  with  him.  Then  shall  the  world 
see  the  Lord  coming  upon  the  clouds  of  heaven.'  " 
This  resurrection  must  be  regarded  as  a  moral  one, 
as  it  is  not  "of  all  the  dead,"  but  of  the  saints  only. 
There  is  not  a  whisper  in  this  ancient  document  of 
endless  punishment,  and  its  testimony,  therefore,  is 
that  that  dogma  was  not  in  the  second  century  re- 
garded as  a  part  of  "  the  teaching  of  the  apostles." 
When  describing  the  endlessness  of  being  it  uses  the 
word  athanasias,  but  describes  the  glory  of  Christ,  as 


THE  EARLIEST  CREEDS.  7 

do  the  Scriptures,  as  for  ages  {eis  tons  amias).  In 
Chapter  XI  occurs  this  language :  '  •  Every  sin  shall 
be  forgiven,  but  this  sin  shall  not  be  forgiven"  (the 
sin  of  an  apostle  asking  money  for  Ms  services) ;  but 
that  form  of  expression  is  clearly  in  accordance  with 
the  Scriptural  method  of  adding  force  to  an  affirma- 
tive by  a  negative,  and  vice  versa,  as  in  the  words 
(Matt,  xviii:  22) :  "  Not  until  seven  times,  but  until 
seventy  times  seven. "  In  fine,  the  ' '  Teaching" 
shows  throughout  that  the  most  ancient  doctrine  of 
the  church,  after  the  apostles,  was  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  universal  salvation.  Cyprian,  A.  D.  250, 
in  a  letter  to  his  son  Magnus,  tells  us  that  in  addi- 
tion to  the  baptismal  formula  converts  were  asked, 
"Dost  thou  believe  in  the  remission  of  sins  and  eter- 
nal life  through  the  holy  church?" 

"  The  Apostles'  Creed,"  so  called,  the  oldest  ex- 
isting authorized  declaration  of  Christian  faith  in  the 
shape  of  a  creed  was  probably  in  ex- 
The  Apostles'  istence  in  various  modified  forms  for 

Creed.  a  century  or  so  before  the  beginning 

of  the  Fourth  Century,  when  it  took  its 
present  shape,  possibly  between  A.  D.  asoandjso.  It 
is  first  found  in  Rufinus,  who  wrote  at  the  end  of  the 
Fourth  and  the  beginning  of  the  Fifth  Century.  No 
allusion  is  made  to  it  before  these  dates  by  J  ustin  Mar- 
tyr, Clement,  Origen,  the  historian  EusEBius,or  any 
of  their  contemporaries,  all  whom  make  declarations  of 
Christian  belief,  nor  is  there  any  hint  in  antecedent 
literature  that  any  such  document  existed.  Individ- 
ual declarations  of  faith  were  made,  however,  quite 
unlike  the  pseudo  Apostles'  Creed,  by  Iren^eus,  Ter- 
TULLiAN,    Cyprian,   Gregory  Thaumaturgus,    etc. 


8     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Hagenbach^  assures  us  that  it  was  "probably  in- 
spired of  various  confessions  of  faith  used  by  the 
primitive  church  in  the  baptismal  service.  Mosheim 
declares:  "All  who  have  any  knowledge  of  an- 
tiquity confess  unanimously  that  the  opinion  (that  the 
apostles  composed  the  Apostles'  Creed)  is  a  mistake, 
and  has  no  foundation.  ^  " 

The  clauses  "the  Holy  Catholic  Church,"  "the 
communion  of  Saints,"  "the  forgiveness  of  sins," 
were  added  after  A.  D.  250.  "He  descended  into 
hell"  was  later  than  the  compilation  of  the  original 
creed — as  late  as  A.  D.  359.  The  document  is  here 
given.  The  portion  in  Roman  type  was  probably 
adopted  in  the  earlier  part  or  middle  of  the  Second 
Century*  and  was  in  Greek;  the  Italic  portion  was 
added  later  by  the  Roman  Church,  and  was  in  Latin: 

"I  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty  {maker 
of  heaven  and  earth)  and  in  Jesus  Christ  his  only  son 
our  Lord,  who  was  {conceived)  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  suffered  under  Pontius  Pi- 
late, was  crucified  {dead)  and  buried,  {He  descended 
into  hell).  The  third  day  he  arose  again  from  the 
dead;  he  ascended  into  heaven  and  sitteth  at  the 
right  hand  of  {God)  th.Q  Father  {Almighty).  From 
thence  he  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the 
dead.  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Holy  {Cath- 
olic) Church.;  {tJie  coimnunion  of  saints)  the  forgive- 
ness of  sins;  the  resurrection  of  the  body;  {and  the 
life  everlastingf.     Amen. " 

2 Text-book  of  Christian  Doctrine;  Gieseler's  Text  Book:  Neander. 
^  Murdoch's  Moslieim  Inst.,  Eccl.  Hist. 
<Bunsen's  Hippolytus  and  His  Age. 
*Aionion,the  original  of  "everlasting."' 


THE  EARLIEST  .CREEDS.  9 

It  will  be  seen  that  not  a  word  is  here  uttered  of 
the  duration  of  punishment.  The  later  form  speaks 
of  "aionian  life,"  but  does  not  refer  to  aionian 
death,  or  punishment.  It  is  incredible  that  this 
declaration  of  faith,  made  at  a  time  when  the  world 
was  ignorant  of  what  constituted  the  Christian  be- 
lief, and  which  was  made  for  the  purpose  of  inform- 
ing the  world,  should  not  convey  a  hint  of  so  vital  a 
doctrine  as  that  of  endless  punishment,  if  at  that 
time  that  dogma  was  a  tenet  of  the  church. 

The  oldest  credal   statement  by  the  Church  of 
Rome  says  that  Christ  "shall  come  to  judge  the  quick 
and  the  dead, "  and  annoimces  belief 
The  Oldest  Credal    in  the  resurrection  of  the  body.    The 
Statement.  oldest  of  the  Greek  constitutions  de- 

clares belief  in  the  "resurrection  of 
the  flesh,  remission  of  sins,  and  the  aionian  life." 
And  the  Alexandrian  statement  speaks  of  "the life," 
but  there  is  not  a  word  of  everlasting  death  or  pun- 
ishment in  any  of  them.  And  this  is  all  that  the 
most  ancient  creeds  contain  on  the  subject.^ 

In  a  germinal  form  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  Ire- 
NiEus,  A.  D.  1 80,  says  that  the  judge,  at  the  final  as- 
size, will  cast  the  wicked  into  aionian  fire.  It  is  sup- 
posed that  he  used  the  word  aionian,  for  the  Greek 
in  which  he  wrote  has  perished,  and  the  Latin  trans- 
lation reads,  '■'■ignem  CBternum." 

As  O  RIG  EN  uses  the  same  word,  and  expressly 
says  it  denotes  limited  duration,  Iren^eus's  testimony 


«  The  Apostles'  Creed  at  first  omitted  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and 
in  its  later  forms  did  not  mention  God's  love  for  men,  his  reign,  repentance, 
or  the  new  life.  Athanase  Coquerel  the  Younger,  First  Hist.  Transforma- 
tions of  Christianity,  page  208. 


10   UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

does  not  help  the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment,  nor 
can  it  be  quoted  to  reenforce  that  of  universal  sal- 
vation. Dr.  Beecher  thinks  that  Iren^eus  taught 
**  a  final  restitution  of  all  things  to  unity  and  order 
by  the  annihilation  of  all  the  finally  impenitent  "'^ — 
a  pseudo-Universalism. 

Even  Tertullian,  born  about  A.  D.  i6o,  though 
his  personal  belief  was  fearfully  partialistic,  could 

not  assert  that  his  pagan-born  doc- 
Tertullian's  trine    was    generally    accepted     by 

Belief.  Christians,   and  when   he   formed   a 

creed  for  general  acceptance  he  en- 
tirely omitted  his  lurid  theology.  It  will  be  seen  that 
Tertullian's  creed  like  that  of  Iren^eus  is  one  of  the 
earlier  forms  of  the  so-called  Apostles'  Creed  :^  ' '  We 
believe  in  one  only  God,  omnipotent,  maker  of  the 
world,  and  his  son  Jesus  Christ,  born  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate,  raised  from  the 
dead  the  third  day,  received  into  the  heavens,  now 
sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  and  who  shall 
come  to  judge  the  living  and  the  dead,  through  the 
resurrection  of  the  flesh. "  Tertullian  did  not  put  his 
private  belief  into  his  creed,  and  at  that  time  he  had 
not  discovered  that  worst  of  dogmas  relating  to  man, 
total  depravity.  In  fact,  he  states  the  opposite. 
He  says:  "There  is  a  portion  of  God  in  the  soul. 
In  the  worst  there  is  something  good,  and  in  the  best 
something  bad."  Neander  says  that  Tertullian 
' '  held  original  goodness  to  be  indelible. " 

The  next  oldest  creed,  the  first  declaration  author- 


'  History,  Doct.  Fut.  Ret.,  pp.  198-205. 

'  See  Lamson's  Church  of  the  First  Three  Centuries. 


THE   EARLIEST  CREEDS.  " 

ized  by  a  consensus  of  the  whole  church,  was  the 
Nicene,  A.  D.  325;  completed  in  381 
The  Nicene  Creed,     at  Constantinople.    Its  sole  reference 
to  the  future  world  is  in  these  words: 
"I  look  for  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  the  life 
of  the  world  (^on)  to  come."     It  does  not  contain  a 
syllable  referring  to  endless  punishment,  though  the 
doctrine  was  then  professed  by  a  portion  of  the  church, 
and  was  insisted  upon  by  some,  though  it  was  not  gen- 
erally enough  held  to  be  stated  as  the  average  belief. 
So  dominant  was  the  influence  of  the  Greek  fa- 
thers,  who  had  learned  Christianity  in  their  native 
tongue,  in  the  language  in  which  it  was  announced, 
and  so  little  had  Tertullian's  cruel  ideas  prevailed, 
that  it  was  not  even  attempted  to  make  the  horrid 
sentiment  a  part  of  the  creed  of  the  church.     More- 
over, Gregory  Nazianzen  presided  over  the  council 
in  Constantinople,  in  which  the   Nicean  creed  was 
finally  shaped— the  Niceo-Constantinopolitan  creed — 
and  as  he  was  a  Universalist,  and  as  the  clause,    "I 
believe  in  the  life  of  the  world  to  come,"  was  added 
by  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  an   "unflinching  advocate  of 
extreme  Universalism,  and  the  very  flower  of  ortho- 
doxy," it  must  be  apparent  that  the   consensus  of 
Christian  sentiment  was  not  yet  anti-Universalistic. 

Thus  the  general  sentiment  in  the  church  from 
32  5  A.  D.  to  38 1  A.  D.  demanded  that  the  life  beyond  the 
grave  be  stated,  and  as  there  is  no  hint 
General  Sentiment    of  the  existence  of  a  world  of  torment, 
in  the  Fourth  how  can  the  conclusion  be  escaped 

Century.  that  Christian  faith  did  not  then  in- 

clude the  thought   of  endless  woe? 
Would  a  council,  composed  even  in  part  of  believers 


12     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

in  endless  torment,  permit  a  Universalist  to  preside, 
and  another  to  shape  its  creed,  and  not  even  attempt 
to  give  expression  to  that  idea?  Is  not  the  Nicene 
creed  a  witness,  in  what  it  does  not  say,  to  the  broader 
faith  that  must  have  been  the  religion  of  the  century 
that  adopted  it? 

It  is  historical  (See  Socrates's  Ecclesiastical  His- 
tory) that  the  four  great  General  Councils  held  in 
the  first  four  centuries — those  at  Nice,  Constanti- 
nople, Ephesus,  and  Chalcedon — gave  expression  to 
no  condemnation  of  universal  restoration,  though,  as 
will  be  shown,  the  doctrine  had  been  prevalent  all 
along. 

In  the  Nicene  creed  adopted  A.  D.  325,  by  three 
hundred  and  twenty  to  two  hundred  and  eighteen 
bishops,  the  only  reference  to  the  future  world  is 
where  it  is  said  that  Christ  "will  come  again  to  judge 
the  living  and  the  dead. "  This  is  the  original  form, 
subsequently  changed.  A.D,  341  the  assembled  bishops 
at  Antioch  made  a  declaration  of  faith  in  which  these 
words  occur:  "The  Lord  Jesus  Christ  will  come 
again  with  glory  and  power  to  judge  the  living  and 
the  dead."  A.D.  346  the  bishops  presented  a  declara- 
tion to  the  Emperor  Const ans  affirming  that  Jesus 
Christ  "shall  come  at  the  consummation  of  the  ages, 
to  judge  the  living  and  the  dead,  and  render  to  every 
one  according  to  his  works. "  The  synod  at  Rimini, 
A.D.  359,  affirmed  that  Christ  "descended  to  the  lower 
parts  of  the  earth,  and  disposed  matters  there,  at  the 
sight  of  whom  the  door-keepers  trembled — and  at  the 
last  day  he  will  come  in  his  Father's  glory  to  render 
to  every  one  according  to  his  deeds. "  This  declara- 
tion opens  the  gates    of   mercy  by  recognizing  the 


THE   EARLIEST  CREEDS.  13 

proclamation  of  the  Gospel  to  the  dead,  and,  as  it 
was  believed  that  when  Christ  preached  in  Hades  the 
doors  were  opened  and  all  those  in  ward  were  re- 
leased, the  words  recited  at  Rimini  that  he  '  'disposed 
matters  there,"  are  very  significant. 

The  Nicene  and  Constantinopolitan  creeds,  printed 
in  one,  will  exhibit  the  nature  of  the  changes  made 
at  Constantinople,  and  will  show  that  the  "life  to 
come"  and  not  the  post-mortem  woe  of  sinners,  was 
the  chief  thought  with  the  early  Christians.  (The 
Nicene  is  here  printed  in  Roman  type,  and  the  Con- 
stantinopolitan in  Italic.) 

'  'We  believe  in  one  God,  the  Father  Almighty, 
Maker  of  [heaven  and  earth,  and)  all  things  visible  and 
invisible,  and  in  one  Lord  Jesus 
The  Niceo-Con-  Christ,  the  (anly  begotten  Son  of  God, 
stantinopolitan  begotten  of  the  Father  before  all 
^'^^^^'  V     worlds,)  only  begotten,  that  is,  of  the 

substance  of  the  Father;  God  of  God, 
Light  of  Light,  very  God  of  Very  God,  begotten  not 
made;  being  of  one  substance  with  the  Father,  by 
whom  all  things  were  made,  [transposed  to  the  be- 
ginning] the  things  in  heaven  and  things  in  earth. 
Who  for  us  men  and  for  our  salvation  came  down 
[from  heaven)  and  was  incarnate  [of  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  the  Virgin  Mary)  and  made  man  [ajid  was  cruci- 
fied for  us  under  Pontius  Pilate),  and  suffered  (aw^a? 
was  buried),  and  rose  again  the  third  day  [according 
to  the  Scriptures),  who  ascended  into  heaven  [and  sit - 
teth  on  the  right  hand  of  the  Father)  and  cometh 
again  [in  glory)  to  judge  quick  and  dead  [of  whose 
kingdom  there  shall  be  no  end).  And  in  the  Holy 
Ghost,   [tJie  Lord  and  giver  of  life,  who  proceedeth 


14     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

from  the  Father^  who  with  the  Father  and  the  Son, 
together  is  worshiped  and  glorified;  who  spake  by  the 
prophets;  in  one  holy  Catholic^  Apostolic  Church;  we  ac- 
knowledge o?ie  baptism  for  the  remission  of  sins;  and 
we  look  for  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  the  life  of 
the  world  to  come,  y  ^ 

This  last  clause  was  not  in  the  original  Nicene 
creed,  but  wasaddedin  the  Constantinopolitan.  The 
literal  rendering  of  the  Greek  is  '  'the  life  of  the  age 
about  to  come. "  ^^ 

The  first  Christians,  it  will  be  seen,  said  in  their 
creeds,  "I  believe  in  the  aeonian  life;"  later,  they 
modified  the  phrase  "aeonian  life,"  to  "the  life  of  the 
coming  aeon, "  showing  that  the  phrases  are  equiva- 
lent. But  not  a  word  of  endless  punishment.  "The 
life  of  the  age  to  come"  was  the  first  Christian  creed, 
and  later,  Origen  himself  declares  his  belief  in 
aeonian  punishment,  and  in  aeonian  life  beyond. 
How,  then,  could  aeonian  punishment  have  been  re- 
garded as  endless? 

The  differences  of  opinion  that  existed  among  the 
early  Christians  are  easily  accounted  for,  when  we  re- 
member that  they  had  been  Jews  or  Heathens,  who 
had  brought  from  their  previous  religious  associations 
all  sorts  of  ideas,  and  were  disposed  to  retain  them  and 
reconcile  them  with  their  new  religion.  Faith  in 
Christ,  and  the  acceptance  of  his  teachings,  could  not 
at  once  eradicate  the  old  opinions,  which,  in  some 
cases,  remained  long,  and  caused  honest  Christians 
to  differ  from  each  other.  As  will  be  shown,  while 
the  Sibylline  Oracles    predisposed   some  of  the   fa- 

9  Hort's  Two  Dissertations,  pp.  106. 13S-147. 
'°  Kox  ^(DYjV  Tov  /xe'XXoi/TOS  dtwvos- 


THE   EARLIEST  CREEDS.  15 

thers  to  Universalism,  Philo  gave  others  a  tendency 
to  the  doctrine  of  annihilation,  and  Enoch  to  endless 
punishment. 

Thus   the   credal   declarations   of   the   Christian 
church  for  almost  four  hundred  years  are  entirely 

void  of  the  lurid  doctrine  with  which 
Statements  of  the  they  afterwards  blazed  for  more  than 
Early  Councils.         a  thousand  years.     The  early  creeds 

contain  no  hint  of  it,  and  no  whisper 
of  condemnation  of  the  doctrine  of  universal  restora- 
tion as  taught  by  Clement,  Origen,  the  Gregories, 
Basil  the  Great,  and  multitudes  besides.  Discussions 
and  declarations  on  the  Trinity,  and  contests  over  ho- 
mooiision  (consubstantial)  and  Jiomoioiision  (of  like 
substance)  engrossed  the  energy  of  disputants,  and 
filled  libraries  of  volumes,  but  the  doctrine  of  the 
great  fathers  remained  unchallenged.  Neither  the  Con- 
cilium Nicaeum,  A.  D.  325,  nor  the  Concilium  Constan- 
tinopolitanum,  A.  D.  381, nor  the  Concilium  Chalcedon- 
enese,  A.  D.  45 1, lisped  a  syllable  of  the  doctrine  of  man's 
final  woe.  The  reticence  of  all  the  ancient  formularies  of 
faith  concerning  endless  punishment  at  the  same  time 
that  the  great  fathers  were  proclaiming  universal 
salvation,  as  appears  later  on  in  these  pages,  is  strong 
evidence  that  the  former  doctrine  was  not  then  ac- 
cepted. It  is  apparent  that  the  early  Christian 
church  did  not  dogmatize  on  man's  final  destiny.  It 
was  engrossed  in  getting  established  among  men  the 
great  truth  of  God's  universal  Fatherhood,  as  re- 
vealed in  the  incarnation,  "God  in  Christ,  reconcil- 
ing the  world  unto  himself,"  Some  taught  endless 
punishment  for  a  portion  of  mankind";  others,  the 
annihilation  of  the  wicked;    others  had  no  definite 


i6    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

opinion  on  human  destiny;  but  the  larger  part,  es- 
pecially from  Clement  of  Alexandria  on  for  three 
hundred  years,  taught  universal  salvation.  It  is  in- 
supposable  that  endless  punishment  was  a  doctrine 
of  the  early  church,  when  it  is  seen  that  not  one  of 
the  early  creeds  embodied  it."  " 

"  The  germ  of  all  the  earlier  declarations  of  faith  had  been  formulated 
even  before  A.  D.  150.  The  reader  can  here  consult  the  original  Greek  of  the 
earliest  declaration  of  faith  as  given  in  Harnack's  Outlines  of  the  History  of 
Dogma,  Funk  &  Wagnall's  edition  of  1893,  pp.  44,  45: 

TTio-Tevo)  eis  deov  naripa  TravTO Kparopa'  kol  ets  Xpicrrov 
l7](Tovv,  VLov  avTov  Tov  fiovayevrj,  tov  Kvpiov  rj/xwv,  tov 
yevvYjOevTa  ck  Trvev/xaros  dyiov  Kal  Maptas  t^s  irapdivov,  rov 
iiri  HovTiov  XltActTOu  (TTavpwOevTa  kol  Ta<j>€VTa,  rfj  rpiTr)  yjp^epa 
avaaravra  ck  v€KpC)v,  dvajSavra  ets  tovs  ovpavovs,  KaO  yp.€vov 
iv  oe$ia  tov  Trarpos,  o6ev  ep)(CTaL  KpXvai  ^wvTas  koX  VKCpovs' 
Kol  ets  irvi.vfxa  aycov,  dyuxv  iKKXr)(Tiav,  a<^e(rtv  dp^apriiov,  (rapKos 
dvdcTTacnv' 


II. 

EARLY  CHRISTIANITY  A    CHEERFUL   RE- 
LIGION. 

When  our    Lord    announced    his    religion    this 
world    was    in    a    condition     of    unutterable    cor- 
ruption,   wretchedness    and  gloom. 
Darkness  at  the        Slavery,  poverty,  vice  that  the  pen 
Advent.  ^g  unwilling  to  name,  almost  univer- 

sally prevailed,  and  even  religion 
partook  of  the  general  degfradation.  ^  Decadence, 
depopulation,  insecurity  of  property,  person  and 
life,  according  to  Taine,  were  everywhere. 
Philosophy  taught  that  it  would  be  better 
for  man  never  to  have  been  created.  In  the 
first  century  Rome  held  supreme  sway.^  Nations 
had  been  destroyed  by  scores,  and  the  civilized  world 
had  lost  half  of  its  population  by  the  sword.  In  the 
first  century  forty  out  of  seventy  years  were  years  of 
famine,  accompanied  by  plague  and  pestilence. 
There  were  universal  depression  and  deepest  melan- 
choly. When  men  were  thus  overborne  with  the 
gloom  and  horror  of  error  and  sin,  into  their  night  of 
darkness  came  the  religion  of  Christ.  Its  announce- 
ments were   all   of  hope  and  cheer.     Its  language 

iMartial,  Juvenal.  Tacitus,  Pliny,  Suetonius,  and  other  heathen  writers, 
describe  the  well-nigh  universal  depravity  and  depressiou  of  the  so-called 
civilized  world.  In  Corinth  the  Acrocorinthus  was  occupied  by  a  temple  to 
the  goddess  of  luet. 

2  Uhlhorn's  Conflict  of  Christianity  and  Paganism. 

17 


i8     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

was,  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  who  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  "Rejoice  in  the 
Lord  always;  again  I  will  say,  rejoice."  "We  re- 
joice with  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory. "  Men 
were  invited  to  accept  the  tidings  of  great  joy.  John, 
the  herald  of  Jesus,  was  a  recluse,  mortifying  body 
and  spirit,  but  Jesus  said,  "John  came  neither  eat- 
ing nor  drinking,  but  the  Son  of  Man  came  eating 
and  drinking. "  He  forbade  all  anxiety  and  care 
among  his  followers,  and  exhorted  all  to  be  as  trust- 
ful as  are  the  lilies  of  the  field  and  the  fowls  of  the 
air.  Says  Matthew  Arnold,  "Christ  professed  to 
bring  in  happiness.  All  the  words  that  belong  to  his 
mission.  Gospel,  kingdom  of  God,  Savior,  grace, 
peace,  living  water,  bread  of  life,  are  brimful  of 
promise  and  joy. "  And  his  cheerful,  joyful  religion 
at  once  won  its  way  by  its  messages  of  peace  and 
tranquillity,  and  for  a  while  its  converts  were  every- 
where characterized  by  their  joyfulnessand  cheerful- 
ness. Haweis  writes:  "The  three  first  centuries 
of  the  Christian  church  are  almost  idyllic  in  their 
simplicity,  sincerity  and  purity.  There  is  less  ad- 
mixture of  evil,  less  intrusion  of  the  world,  the  flesh, 
and  the  devil,  more  simple-hearted  goodness,  ear- 
nestness and  reality  to  be  found  in  the  space  between 
Nero  and  Constantine  than  in  any  other  three  cen- 
turies from  A.  D.  lootoA.  D.  1800."^  De  Pressense 
calls  the  early  era  of  the  church  its  "  blessed  child- 
hood, all  calmness  and  simplicity."^  Cave,  in  "  Lives 
of  the  Fathers,"  states:  "The  noblest  portion  of 
church   history     *     *     *     ^^q  j^^ost  considerable  age 

^Conquering  Cross.  Forewords. 
♦Early  Years  of  the  Christian  Church. 


EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  19 

of  the  church,  the  years  from  EusEBiusto  Basil  the 
Great. " 

Christianity  was  everywhere  at  first,  a  religion  of 
"  sweetness  and  light. "     The  Greek  fathers  exem- 
plified all  these  qualities,  and   Cle- 
"  Sweetness  and        men T  and  Origen  were  ideals  of  its 
Light."  perfect  spirit.     But  from  Augustine 

downward  the  Latin  reaction,  prompt- 
ed by  the  tendency  of  men  in  all  ages  to  escape  the 
exactions  laid  upon  the  soul  by  thought,  and  who  flee 
to  external  authority  to  avoid  the  demands  of  reason, 
was  away  from  the  genius  of  Christian ty,  until  Au- 
gustinianism  ripened  into  Popery,  and  the  beautiful 
system  of  the  Greek  fathers  was  succeeded  by  the 
nightmare  of  the  theology  of  the  mediaeval  centuries, 
and  later  of  Calvinism  and  Puritanism.^  Had  the 
church  followed  the  prevailing  spirit  of  the  ante- 
Nicene  Fathers  it  would  have  conserved  the  best 
thought  of  Greece,  the  divine  ideals  of  Plato,  and 
joined  them  to  the  true  interpretation  of  Christian- 
ity, and  we  may  venture  to  declare  that  it  would  thus 
have  continued  the  career  of  progress  that  had  ren- 
dered the  first  three  centuries  so  marvelous  in  their 
character;  a  progress  that  would  have  continued  with 
accelerated  speed,  and  Christendom  would  have 
widened  its  borders  and  deepened  its  sway  immeas- 
urably. With  the  prevalence  of  the  Latin  language 
the  East  and  the  West  grew  apart,  and  the  latter, 
more  and  more  discarding  reason,  and  controlled, 
by  the  iron  inflexibility  of  a  semi-pagan  secular  gov- 
ernment, gave  Roman  Catholicism  its  opportunity. 

^Allen's  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought. 


ao     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

The  influence  of  the  ascetic  religions  of  the  Asi- 
atic countries,  especially  Buddhism,  contaminated 
Christianity,  resulting-  later  in  celib- 
Oriental  acy,  monasteries,  convents,  hermits. 

Asceticism.  and  all  the  worser  elements  of  Ca- 

tholicism in  the  Middle  Ages.  ^  At  the 
first  contact  Christianity  absorbed  more  than  it  mod- 
ified, till  in  the  later  ages  the  alien  force  became  su- 
preme. In  fact,  orientalism  was  already  beginning 
to  mar  the  beautiful  simplicity  of  Christianity  when 
John  wrote  his  Gospel  to  counteract  it.  Schaff,  in 
his  "History  of  the  Christian  Church,"  remarks: 
All  the  germs  of  (Christian)  asceticism  appear  in 
the  third  century.  *  *  *  The  first  two  Christian 
hermits  were  not  till  Paul  of  Thebes,  A.  D.  250,  and 
Anthony  of  Egypt,  A.  D.  270,  appeared.  Asceti- 
cism was  in  existence  long  before  Christ.  Jews, 
Nazarites,  Essenes,  Therapeutae,  Persians,  Indians, 
Buddhists,  all  originated  this  Oriental  heathenism. 
*  *  *  The  religion  of  the  Chinese,  Buddhism, 
Brahmanism,  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  and  of  the 
Egyptians,  more  or  less  leavened  Christianity  in  its 
earliest  stages.  So  did  Greek  and  Roman  paganism 
with  which  the  apostles  and  their  followers  came 
into  direct  contact. 

The  doctrines  of  substitutional  atonement,  resur. 
rection  of  the  body,  native  depravity,  and  endless 
punishment,  are  not  lisped  in  the  earliest  creeds  or 
formulas.'  The  earliest  Christians  (Allen:  Christian 
Thought)  taught  that  man  is  the  image  of  God,  and 
that  the  in-dwelling  Deity  will  lead  him  to  holiness. 

'Milman's  Latin  Christianity. 
^Shedd's  History  of  Christian  Doctrine. 


EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  21 

In  Alexandria,  the  center  of  Greek  culture  and  Chris- 
tian thought,  "more  thoroughly  Greek  than  Athens 
in  its  days  of  renown,"  the  theological  atmosphere 
was  more  nearly  akin  to  that  of  the  Universalist 
church  of  the  present  day  than  to  that  of  any  other 
branch  of  the  Christian  church  during  the  last  fifteen 
centuries.  ^ 

The  wonderful  progress  made  during  the  first 
three  centuries  by  the  simple,  pure  and  cheerful  faith 
Wonderful  ^^  early  Christianity  shows  us  what 

Progress  of  its  growth  might  have  been  made  had 

Christianity  at  not  the  morose  spirit  of  Tertullian, 

^'•"st-  reinforced  by  the   "dark  shadow  of 

Augustine,  "transformed  it.  As  early  as  the  beginning 
of  the  second  century  the  heathen  Pliny,  the  pro- 
praetor of  Bithynia,  reported  to  the  emperor  that  his 
province  was  so  filled  with  Christians  that  the  worship 
of  the  heathen  deities  had  nearly  ceased.  And  they 
were  not  only  of  the  poor  and  despised,  but  of  all 
conditions  of  life — ouinis  ordinis.  Milner  thinks  that 
Asia  Minor  was  at  this  time  quite  thoroughly  evan- 
gelized. As  early  as  the  close  of  the  Second  Century 
there  were  not  only  many  converts  from  the  humbler 
ranks,  but  '  'the  main  strength  of  Christianity  lay  in 
the  middle,  perhaps  in  the  mercantile  classes." 
Gibbon  says  the  Christians  were  not  one-twentieth 
part  of  the  Roman  Empire,  till  Constantine  gave 
them  the  sanction  of  his  authority,  but  Robertson 

8The  early  Christians  never  transferred  the  rigidity  of  the  Jewish  Sab- 
bath to  Sunday.  Both  Saturday  and  Sunday  were  observed  religiously  till 
towards  the  end  of  the  second  century — then  Sunday  alone  was  kept.  Fast- 
ing and  even  kneeling  in  prayer  was  forbidden  on  Sunday  with  the  early 
Christians.  Ancient  Christian  writers  always  mean  Saturday  by  the  word 
"Sabbath." 


22     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

estimates  them  at  one-fifth  of  the  whole,  and  in  some 
districts  as  the  majority.^  Origen  :  '  'Against  Celsus" 
says:  "At  the  present  day  (A.  D.  240)  not  only  rich 
men,  but  persons  of  rank,  and  delicate  and  high-born 
ladies,  receive  the  teachers  of  Christianity;  and  the 
religion  of  Christ  is  better  known  than  the  teachings 
of  the  best  philosophers."  And  Arnobius  testifies 
that  Christians  included  orators,  grammarians,  rhet- 
oricians, lawyers,  physicians,  and  philosophers.  And 
it  was  precisely  their  bright  and  cheerful  views  of 
life  and  death,  of  God's  universal  fatherhood  and 
man's  universal  brotherhood — the  divinity  of  its 
ethical  principles  and  the  purity  of  its  professors, 
that  account  for  the  wonderful  progress  of  Christian- 
ity during  the  three  centuries  that  followed  our 
Lord's  death.  The  pessimism  of  the  oriental  relig- 
ions ;  the  corruption  and  folly  of  the  Greek  and  Ro- 
man mythology;  the  unutterable  wickedness  of  the 
mass  of  mankind,  and  the  universal  depression  of 
society  invited  its  advance,  and  gave  way  before  it. 
Justin  Martyr  wrote  that  in  his  time  prayers  and 
thanksgivings  were  offered  in  ''the  name  of  the  Cru- 
cified, among  every  race  of  men,  Greek  or  barba- 
rian."  Tertullian  states  that  all  races  and  tribes, 
even  to  farthest  Britain,  had  heard  the  news  of»salva- 
tion.  He  declared:  "We  are  but  of  yesterday,  and 
lo  we  fill  the  whole  empire — your  cities,  your  islands, 
your  fortresses,  your  municipalities,  your  councils, 
nay  even  the  camp,  the  tribune,  the  decory,  the  pal- 


'The  Emperor    Maximin  in  one  of   his  edicts   says  that  "Almost  all 
had  abandoned  the  worship  of  their  ancestors  for  the  new  faith." 


EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  23 

ace,  the  senate,  the  forum.  "^°  Chrysostom  testifies 
that  "the  isles  of  Britain  in  the  heart  of  the  ocean 
had  been  converted." 

The  talismanic  word  of  the  Alexandrian  fathers, 
as  of  the  New  Testament,  was  father.     This  word, 

as  now,  unlocked  all  mysteries, 
God's  solved   all  problems,  and   explained 

Fatherhood.  all  the  enigmas  of  time  and  eternity. 

Holding-  God  as  Father,  punishment 
was  held  to  be  remedial,  and  therefore  restorative, 
and  final  recovery  from  sin  universal.  It  was  only 
when  the  Father  was  lost  sight  of  in  the  judge  and 
tyrant,  under  the  baneful  reign  of  Augustinianism, 
that  Deity  was  hated,  and  that  Catholics  transferred 
to  Mary,  and  later,  Protestants  gave  to  Jesus  that  su- 
preme love  that  is  due  alone  to  the  Universal  Father. 
For  centuries  in  Christendom  after  the  Alexandrine 
form  of  Christianity  had  waned,  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  was  a  lost  truth,  and  most  of  the  worst  errors  of 
the  modern  creeds  are  due  to  that  single  fact,  more 
than  to  all  other  causes. 

It  was  during  those  happy  years  more  than  in  any 
subsequent  three  centuries,  that,  as  Jerome  ob- 
served, "the  blood  of  Christ  was  yet  warm  in  the 
breasts  of  Christians. "  Says  the  accurate  historian. 
Cave,  in  his  "Primitive  Christianity:"  "Here  he 
will  find  a  piety  active  and  zealous,  shining  through 
the  blackest  clouds  of  malice  and  cruelty;  afflicted  in- 

'^''Hesterni  sumus  et  vestra  otnnes  itnplevimus  tirbes,  insulas  ,castella, 
municipia,  conciliabula,  casira  ipsa,  tribus,  dectirias,  palathim,  senatum, 
forum.  Apol.c.  XXXVII.  Mosheim,  however,  thinks  that  the  "African 
orator,"  who  is  inclined  to  exaggerate,  "rhetoricates"  a  little  here.  The 
primitive  Christians  exulted  at  the  wonderful  progress  and  diffusion  of  the 
Gospel, 


24     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

nocence  triumphant,  notwithstanding  all  the  powerful 
or  politic  attempts  of  men  or  devils;  a  patience  un- 
conquerable under  the  biggest  temptations ;  a  charity 
truly  catholic  and  unlimited ;  a  simplicity  and  upright 
carriage  in  all  transactions;  a  sobriety  and  temper- 
ance remarkable  to  the  admiration  of  their  enemies; 
and,  in  short,  he  will  see  the  divine  and  holy  precepts 
of  the  Christian  religion  drawn  down  into  action,  and 
the  most  excellent  genius  and  spirit  of  the  Gospel 
breathing  in  the  hearts  and  lives  of  these  good  old 
Christians. " 

'  'Christianity, "  says  Milm  an,  '  'was  almost  from  the 
first  a  Greek  religion.     Its  primal  records  were  all 
written  in  the  Greek  language ;  it  was 
„     ,  promulgated  with  the  greatest  rapid- 

Religion,  ^ty  ^^^  success  among  nations  either 

of  Greek  descent,  or  those  which  had 
been  Grecized  by  the  conquest  of  Alexander.  In 
their  polity  the  Grecian  churches  were  a  federation 
of  republics. "  At  the  first,  art,  literature,  life,  were 
Greek,  cheerful,  sunny,  serene.  The  Latin  type  of 
character  was  morose,  gloomy,  characterized,  says 
MiLMAN,  by  "adherence  to  legal  form;  severe  subor- 
dination to  authority.  The  Roman  Empire  extended 
over  Europe  by  a  universal  code,  and  by  subordination 
to  a  spiritual  C^sar  as  absolute  as  he  was  in  civil 
obedience.  Thus  the  original  simplicity  of  the  Chris- 
tian polity  was  entirely  subverted;  its  pure  democ- 
racy became  a  spiritual  autocracy.  The  presbyters 
developed  into  bishops,  the  bishop  of  Rome  became 
pope,  and  Christendom  reflected  Rome."  But  dur- 
ing the  first  three  centuries  this  change  had  not  taken 
place.      "It  is  there,  therefore,   among  the  Alexan- 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY.  25 

drine  fathers  that  we  are  to  look  to  find  Christianity 
in  its  pristine  purity.  The  language,  organization, 
writers,  and  Scriptures  of  the  church  in  the  first  cen- 
turies were  all  Greek.  The  Gospels  were  every- 
where read  in  Greek,  the  commercial  and  literary 
langaiage  of  the  empire.  The  books  were  in  Greek, 
and  even  in  Gaul  and  Rome  Greek  was  the  liturgical 
language.  The  Octavius  of  Minucius  Felix,  and 
NovATiAN  on  the  Trinity,  were  the  earliest  known 
works  of  Latin  Christian  literature." 
An  Impressive  Thought. 
The  Greek  Fathers  derived  their  Universalism 
directly  and  solely  from  the  Greek  Scriptures.  Noth- 
ing to  suggest  the  doctrine  existed  in  Greek  or  Latin 
literature,  mythology,  or  theology;  all  current 
thought  on  matters  of  eschatology  was  utterly  op- 
posed to  any  such  view  of  human  destiny.  And, 
furthermore,  the  unutterable  wickedness,  degrada- 
tion and  woe  that  filled  the  world  would  have  in- 
clined the  early  Christians  to  the  most  pessimistic 
view  of  the  future  consistent  with  the  teachings  of 
the  religion  they  had  espoused.  To  know  that,  in 
those  dreadful  times,  they  derived  the  divine  optim- 
ism of  universal  deliverance  from  sin  and  sorrow 
from  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  his  apostles,  should 
predispose  every  modern  to  agree  with  them.  On 
this  point  Allin,  in  "Universalism  Asserted,"  elo- 
quently says: 

"The  church  was  born  into  a  world  of  whose  moral 


"Milman's  Latin  Christianity,  "The  breadth  of  the  best  Greek  Fathers, 
such  as  Origen,  or  Clement  of  Alexandria,  is  a  thousand  times  superior  to 
the  dry,  harsh  narrowness  of  the  Latins."  Athanase  Coquerel  the  Younger, 
First  Hist.  Trans,  of  Christianity,  p.  215. 


26     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

rottenness  few  have  or  can  have  any  idea.  Even  the 
sober  historians  of  the  later  Roman  Empire  have 
their  pages  tainted  with  scenes  impossible  to  trans- 
late. Lusts  the  foulest,  debauchery  to  us  happily  in- 
conceivable, raged  on  every  side.  To  assert  even 
faintly  the  final  redemption  of  all  this  rottenness, 
whose  depths  we  dare  not  try  to  sound,  required  the 
firmest  faith  in  the  larger  hope,  as  an  essential  part 
of  the  Gospel.  But  this  is  not  all;  in  a  peculiar 
sense  the  church  was  militant  in  the  early  centuries. 
It  was  engaged  in,  at  times,  a  struggle,  for  life  or 
death,  with  a  relentless  persecution.  Thus  it  must 
have  seemed  in  that  age  almost  an  act  of  treason  to 
the  cross  to  teach  that,  though  dying  unrepentant, 
the  bitter  persecutor,  or  the  votary  of  abominable 
lusts,  should  yet  in  the  ages  to  come  find  salvation. 
Such  considerations  help  us  to  see  the  extreme 
weight  attaching  even  to  the  very  least  expression  in 
the  fathers  which  involves  sympathy  with  the 
larger  hope,  *  *  *  especially  so  when  we  con- 
sider that  the  idea  of  mercy  was  then  but  little 
known,  and  that  truth,  as  we  conceive  it,  was  not 
then  esteemed  a  duty.  As  the  vices  of  the  early  cen- 
turies were  great,  so  were  their  punishments  cruel. 
The  early  fathers  wrote  when  the  wild  beasts  of  the 
arena  tore  alike  the  innocent  and  the  guilty,  limb 
from  limb,  amid  the  applause  even  of  gently-nur- 
tured women;  they  wrote  when  the  cross,  with  its 
living  burden  of  agony,  was  a  common  sight,  and 
evoked  no  protest.  They  wrote  when  every  minister 
of  justice  was  a  torturer,  and  almost  every  criminal 
court  a  petty  inquisition ;  when  every  household  of 
the  better  class,   even  among  Christians,   swarmed 


EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  27 

with  slaves  liable  to  torture,  to  scourging,  to  mutila- 
tion, at  the  caprice  of  a  master  or  the  frown  of  a  mis- 
tress. Let  all  these  facts  be  fully  weighed,  and  a 
conviction  arises  irresistibly,  that,  in  such  an  age,  no 
idea  of  Universalism  could  have  originated  unless  in- 
spired from  above.  If,  now,  when  criminals  are 
shielded  from  suffering  with  almost  morbid  care, 
men,  the  best  of  men,  think  with  very  little  con- 
cern of  the  unutterable  woe  of  the  lost,  how,  I 
ask,  could  Universalism  have  arisen  of  itself  in  an 
age  like  that  of  the  fathers?  Consider  further.  The 
larger  hope  is  not,  we  are  informed,  in  the  Bible;  it 
is  not,  we  know,  in  the  heart  of  man  naturally;  still 
less  was  it  there  in  days  such  as  those  we  have  de- 
scribed, when  mercy  was  unknown,  when  the  dear- 
est interest  of  the  church  forbade  its  avowal.  But 
it  is  found  in  many,  very  many,  ancient  fathers,  and 
often,  in  the  very  broadest  form,  embracing  e  very 
fallen  spirit.  Where,  then,  did  they  find  it?  Whence 
did  they  import  this  idea?  Can  we  doubt  that  the 
fathers  could  only  have  drawn  it,  as  their  writings 
testify,  from  the  Bible  itself?" 

Testimony  of  the  Catacombs. 
An  illuminating  side-light  is  cast  on  the  opinions 
of  the  early  Christians  by  the  inscriptions  and  em- 
blems on  the  monuments  in  the  Roman  Catacombs.  ^^ 
It  is  well  known  that  from  the  end  of  the  First  to 
the  end  of  the  Fourth  Century  the  early  Christians 
buried  their  dead,  probably  with  the  knowledge  and 
consent  of  the  pagan  authorities,  in  subterranean  gal- 
leries excavated  in  the  soft  rock  {tufa)  that  underlies 

1*  Cutts,  Turning  Points  of  Church  History. 


28      UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Rome.  These  ancient  cemeteries  were  first  uncov- 
ered A.  D.  1 5  78.  Already  sixty  excavations  have  been 
made  extending  five  hundred  and  eighty-seven  miles. 
More  than  six,  some  estimates  say  eight,  million 
bodies  are  known  to  have  been  buried  between  A.  D.  72 
andA.  D.  410.  Eleven  thousand  epitaphs  and  inscrip- 
tions have  been  found ;  few  dates  are  between  A.  D.  72 
and  100;  the  most  are  from  A.  D.  150  to  A.D.  410. 
The  galleries  are  from  three  to  five  feet  wide  and 
eight  feet  high,  and  the  niches  for  bodies  are  five 
tiers  deep,  one  above  another,  each  silent  tenant  in 
its  separate  cell.  At  the  entrance  of  each  cell  is  a 
tile  or  slab  of  marble,  once  securely  cemented  and 
inscribed  with  name,  epitaph  or  emblem.  ^^  Haweis 
beautifully  says  in  his  "Conquering  Cross:"  "  The 
public  life  of  the  early  Christian  was  persecution 
above  ground;  his  private  life  was  prayer  under- 
ground. "  The  emblems  and  inscriptions  are  most 
suggestive.  The  principal  device,  scratched  on 
slabs,  carved  on  utensils  and  rings,  and  seen  almost 
everywhere,  is  the  Good  Shepherd,  surrounded  by 
his  flock  and  carrying  a  lamb.  But  most  striking  of 
all,  he  is  found  with  a  goat  on  his  shoulder;  which 
teaches  us  that  even  the  wicked  were  at  that  early 
date  regarded  as  the  objects  of  the  Savior's  solici- 
tude, after  departing  from  this  life.  ^^ 

Matthew  Arnold  has  preserved  this  truth  in  his 
immortal  verse  ;^* 

"  He  saves  the  sheep,  the  goats  he  doth  not  save!" 
So  rang  Tertullian's  sentence  on  the  side 

"See  DeRossi,  Northcote,  Withrow.etc,  on  the  Catacombs. 

i*A  suggestive  thought  in  this  connection  is,  that  our  Lord  (Matt.  xxv. 
33),  calls  those  on  his  left  hand  "kidlings,"  "little  kids,"  a  term  of  tender- 
ness and  regard. 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY.  29 

Of  that  unpitying  Phrygian  sect  which  cried,— 
"Him  can  no  fount  of  fresh  forgiveness  lave, 
Whose  sins  once  washed  by  the  baptismal  wave!" 

So  spake  the  fierce  Tertullian.    But  she  sighed, 

The  infant  Church,— of  love  she  felt  the  tide 
Stream  on  her  from  her  Lord's  yet  recent  grave. 

And  then  she  smiled,  and  in  the  Catacombs, 
With  eyes  suffused  but  heart  inspired  true. 

On  those  walls  subterranean,  where  she  hid 
Her  head  in  ignominy,  death  and  tombs. 

She  her  Good  Shepherd's  hasty  image  drew 

And  on  his  shoulders  not  a  lamb,  a  kid! 

The  picture  is  a  "distinct  protest"  against  the 
un-Christian  sentiment  then  already  creeping  into 
the  church  from  Paganism. 

Everywhere  in  the  Catacombs  is  the  anchor,  em- 
blem of  that  hope  which  separated  Christianity  from 
Paganism.  Another  symbol  is  the  fish,  which 
plays  a  prominent  part  in  Christian  symbolry.  It  is 
curious  and  instructive  to  account  for  this  ideograph. 
It  is  used  as  a  cryptogram  of  Christ.  The  word  is 
a  sort  of  acrostic  of  the  name  and  office  of  our  Lord. 

The   Greek   word    fish,    in    capitals — IX0Y2  — 
would  be  a  secret  cypher  that  would  stand  for  our 
Lord's  name,  when  men    dared   not 
Early  Funereal  write  or  speak  it;  and   the  word    or 

Emblems.  the  picture  of  a   fish   meant  to  the 

Christian  the  name  of  his  Savior  ; 
and  he  wore  as  a  charm  a  fish  cut  in  ivory,  or  mother- 
of-pearl,  on  his  neck  living,  and  bore  to  his  grave 
to  be  exhumed  centuries  after  his  death  an  effigy  of 
a  fish  to  signify  his  faith.  These  and  the  vine,  the 
sheep,  the  dove,  the  ark,  the  palm  and  other  em- 
blems in  the  Catacombs  express  only  hope,  faith, 
cheerful  confidence.     The  horrid  inventions  of  Aug- 


30     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES, 

USTINE,  the  cruel  monstrosities  of  Angelo  and  Dante, 
and  the  abominations  of  the  mediaeval  theology  were 
all  unthought  of  then,  and  have  no  hint  in  the  Cata- 
combs. 

Still  more  instructive  are  the  inscriptions.  As 
De  Rossi  observes,  the  most  ancient  inscriptions  dif- 
fer from  those  of  the  Pagans  "more  by  what  they 
do  not  say  than  by  what  they  do  say."  While  the 
Pagans  denote  the  rank  or  social  position  of  their 
dead  as  clarissima  femine,  or  lady  of  senatorial  rank, 
Christian  epigraphy  is  destitute  of  all  mention  of 
distinctions.  Only  the  name  and  some  expression  of 
endearment  and  confidence  are  inscribed.  Says 
Northcote:  "  They  proceed  upon  the  assumption 
that  there  is  an  incessant  interchange  of  kindly  offices 
between  this  world  and  the  next,  between  the  living 
and  the  dead."  Mankind  is  a  brotherhood,  and  not 
a  word  can  be  found  to  show  any  thought  of  the  mu- 
tilation of  the  great  fraternity,  and  the  consignment 
of  any  portion  of  it  to  final  despair.  Such  are  these 
among  the  inscriptions :  '■'■Pax  tecum,  Urania;"  "Peace 
with  thee,  Urania;"  "-Semper  in  D.  vivas,  dulcis 
aninia;"  "Always  in  God  mayest  thou  live,  sweet 
soul;"  "Mayest  thou  live  in  the  Lord,  and  pray  for 
us. "  They  had  ' '  emigrated, "  had  been  ' '  translated, " 
"  born  into  eternity, "  but  not  a  word  is  found  ex- 
pressive of  doubt  or  fear,  horror  and  gloom,  such  as 
in  subsequent  generations  formed  the  staple  of  the 
literature  of  death  and  the  grave,  and  rendered  the 
Christian  graveyard,  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  a  horrible  place.  The  first  Chris- 
tians regarded  the  grave  as  the  doorway  into  a  better 


EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  31 

world,  and  expressed  only  hope  and  trust   in   their 
emblems  and  inscriptions. 

Following  are  additional  specimen  epitaphs: 
"Irene  in  Pace."  "Here  lies  Marcia  put  to  rest  in  a 
dream  of  peace."  ^'Victorina  donnit,''  "Victoria 
sleeps;"  '•'•Zoticvs  hie  ad dormiendvm"  "Zoticus  laid 
here  to  sleep;"  '■'•Raptvs  eterne  domvs,"  "Snatched 
home  eternally."  "In  Christ;  Alexander  is  not 
dead  but  lives  beyond  the  stars,  and  his  body  rests 
in  this  tomb."  Contrast  these  with  the  tone  of 
heathen  funereal  inscriptions.  In  general  the  pagan 
epitaphs  were  like  that  which  Sophocles  expresses 
in  the  CEdiptis,  at  Colomus : 

"Happiest  beyond  compare 

Never  to  taste  of  life; 

Happiest  in  order  next. 

Being  born,  with  quickest  speed 

Thither  again  to  turn. 

From  whence  we  came." 
"In  a  Roman  monument  which  I  had  occasion  to 
publish  not  long  since,  a  father  (Caius  Sextus  by 
name, )  is  represented  bidding  farewell  to  his  daugh- 
ter, and  two  words — 'Vale  yEternam,'  farewell  for- 
ever— give  an  expressive  utterance  to  the  feeling  of 
blank  and  hopeless  severance  with  which  Greeks  and 
Romans  were  burdened  when  the  reality  of  death 
was  before  their  eyes."  (Mariott,  p.  186.)  Death 
was  a  cheerful  event  in  the  eyes  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians. It  was  called  birth.  Anchors,  harps,  palms, 
crowns,  surrounded  the  grave.  They  discarded 
lamentations  and  extravagant  grief.  The  prayers  for 
the  dead  were  thanksgiving  for  God's  goodness. 
(ScHAFF,  Hist.  Christ.  Church,  Vol.  i,  p.  342.) 
Their  language  is  such  as  could  not  have  been  used 


32     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

by  them  had  they  entertained  the  views  that  pre- 
vailed from  the  Sixth  to  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
among  the  majority  of  Christians ;  and  their  remains 
all  testify  to  the  cheerfulness  of  early  Christianity. 

"The  fathers  of  the  church  live  in  their  volumi- 
nous works ;  the  lower  orders  are  only  represented 

by  these  simple  records,  from  which, 
Cheerful  Faith  .,,  .  ,. 

r  xu   TT-   i.  with  scarcely  an   exception,   sorrow 

of  the  First  ,  ,  -f  ,       .  ,  ' 

Christians  ^^^    complaint    are    banished;     the 

boast  of  suffering,  or  an  appeal  to 
the  revengeful  passions  is  nowhere  to  be  found.  One 
expresses  faith^  another  hope,  a  third  charity.  The 
genius  of  primitive  Christianity — to  believe,  to  love 
and  to  suffer — has  never  been  better  illustrated. 
These  'sermons  in  stones'  are  addressed  to  the  heart 
and  not  to  the  head — to  the  feelings  rather  than  to 
the  taste.  *  *  *  In  all  the  pictures  and  scriptures 
of  our  Lord's  history  no  reference  is  ever  found  to 
his  sufferings  or  death.  No  gloomy  subjects  occur 
in  the  cycle  of  Christian  art."  (Maitland.  )  Chrysos- 
TOM  says:  "For  this  cause,  too,  the  place  itself  is 
called  a  cemetery;  that  you  may  know  that  the  dead 
laid  there  are  not  dead,  but  at  rest  and  asleep.  For 
before  the  coming  of  Christ  death  used  to  be  called 
death,  and  not  only  so,  but  Hades,  but  after  his  com- 
ing and  dying  for  the  life  of  the  world,  death  came 
to  be  called  death  no  longer,  but  sleep  and  repose." 
The  word  cemeteries,  dormitories,  shows  us  that 
death  was  regarded  as  a  state  of  repose  and  thus  a 
condition  of  hope.  In  fact,  "in  this  auspicious 
word,^^  now  for  the  first  time  applied  to  the  tomb, 

i*Maitland'8  Church  and  the  Catacombs. 


EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  33 

there  is  manifest  a  sense  of  hope  and  immortality,  the 
result  of  a  new  religion.  A  star  had  arisen  on  the 
borders  of  the  grave,  dispelling  the  horror  of  dark- 
ness which  had  hitherto  reigned  there ;  the  prospect 
beyond  was  now  cleared  tip,  and  so  dazzling  was  the 
view  of  an  'eternal  city  sculptured  in  the  sky, '  that  num- 
bers were  found  eager  to  rush  through  the  gate  of 
martyrdom,  for  the  hope  of  entering  its  starry  por- 
tals. "^^  Says  Ruskin:  "Not  a  cross  as  a  symbol  in 
the  Catacombs.  The  earliest  certain  Latin  cross  is  on 
the  tomb  of  the  Empress  Galla  Placidia,  A.  D.  451. 
No  picture  of  the  crucifixion  till  the  Ninth  Century, 
nor  any  portable  crucifix  till  long  after.  To  the  early 
Christians  Christ  was  living,  the  one  agonized  hour 
was  lost  in  the  thought  of  his  glory  and  triumph. 
The  fall  of  theology  and  Christian  thought  dates 
from  the  error  of  dwelling  upon  his  death  instead  of 
his  life. "  ^^  Farrar  adds:  "The  symbols  of  the  Cata- 
combs, like  every  other  indication  of  early  teaching, 
show  the  glad,  bright,  loving  character  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  It  was  a  religion  of  joy  and  not  of  gloom, 
of  life  and  not  of  death,  of  tenderness  not  of  severity. 
*  *  *  We  see  in  them  as  in  the  acts  of  the  apos- 
tles, that  the  keynotes  of  the  music  of  the  Christian 
life  were  'exultation'  and  'simplicity.'  And  how 
far  superior  in  beauty  and  significance  were  these 
early  Christian  symbols  to  the  meaningless  and  pagan 
broken  columns  and  broken  rose-buds  and  skulls 
and  weeping  women  and  inverted  torches  of  our 
cemeteries.  We  find  in  the  Catacombs  neither  the 
cross  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  nor  the  crucifixes 

i^Maitland. 
i^Bible  of  Amiens. 


34     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES 

of  the  twelfth,  nor  the  torches  and  martyrdoms  of 
the  seventeenth,  nor  the  skeletons  of  the  fifteenth, 
nor  the  cypresses  and  death's  heads  of  the  eighteenth. 
Instead  of  these  the  symbols  of  beauty,  hope  and 
peace."  ^^ 

From  A.  D.  70,  the  date  of  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
to  about  A.  D.  150,  there  is  very  little   Christian  lit- 
erature.      It    is    only    with    Justin 
Dean  Stanley's  Martyr,   who  was  executed  A.    D. 

Testimony.  i66,  that  there  is  any  considerable 

literature  of  the  church.  The  fa- 
thers before  Justin  are  "shadows,  formless  phan- 
toms, whose  writings  are  uncertain  and  only  partly 
genuine.'-  Speaking  of  the  scarcity  of  literature 
pertaining  to  those  times  and  the  changes  expe- 
rienced by  Christianity,  says  Dean  Stanley:  "No 
other  change  equally  momentous  has  ever  since 
affected  its  features,  yet  none  has  ever  been  so  silent 
and  secret.  The  stream  in  that  most  critical  mo- 
ment of  its  passage  from  the  everlasting  hills  to  the 
plain  below  is  lost  to  our  view  at  the  very  point 
where  we  are  most  anxious  to  watch  it.  We  may 
hear  its  struggles  under  the  overarching  rocks;  we 
may  catch  its  spray  on  the  boughs  that  overlap  its 
course,  but  the  torrent  itself  we  see  not  or  see  only 
by  imperfect  glimpses.  *  *  *  A  fragment  here, 
an  allegory  there;  romances  of  unknown  authorship; 
a  handful  of  letters  of  which  the  genuineness  of 
every  portion  is  contested  inch  by  inch ;  the  sum- 
mary explanation  of  a  Roman  magistrate;  the  plead- 
ings of  two  or  three   Christian   apologists;  customs 

i^Lives  of  the  Fathers. 


EARLY   CHRISTIANITY.  35 

and  opinions  in  the  very  act  of  change ;  last,  but  not 
least,  the  faded  paintings,  the  broken  sculptures,  the 
rude  epitaphs  in  the  darkness  of  the  Catacombs — 
these  are  the  scanty,  though  attractive  materials  out 
of  which  the  likeness  of  the  early  church  must  be 
produced,  as  it  was  working  its  way,  in  the  literal 
sense  of  the  word,  underground,  under  camp  and 
palace,  under  senate  and  forum.  "^^ 

There  were  eighty  years  between  Paul's  latest  epis- 
tle and  the  first  of  the  writings  of  the  Christian  fa- 
thers. Besides  the  writings  of  Tacitus  and  Pliny, the 
long  hiatus  is  filled  only  by  the  emblems  and  in- 
scriptions of  the  Catacombs.  What  an  eloquent  story 
they  tell  of  the  cheerfulness  of  primitive  Christian- 
ity l^o 

''Christian  Institutions. 

soMartlneau's  Hours  of  Thought,  p.  155.  "In  the  cycle  of  Christian  em- 
blems the  death  of  Christ  holds  no  place;  it  was  not  till  six  centuries  after 
his  death  that  artists  began  to  venture  upon  the  representation  of  Christ 
crucified.  The  crucifix  dates  only  from  the  end  of  the  Seventh  Century."— 
Athanase  Coquerel. 


III. 

ORIGIN  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT. 

When  our  Lord  spoke,  the  doctrine  of  unending 
torment  was  believed  by  many  of  those  who  listened 
to  his  words,  and  they  stated  it  in  terms  and  employed 
others,  entirely  different,  in  describing  the  duration 
of  punishment,  from  the  terms  afterward  used  by 
those  who  taught  universal  salvation  and  annihila- 
tion, and  so  gave  to  the  terms  in  question  the  sense 
of  unlimited  duration. 

For  example,  the  Pharisees,  according  to  Josephus, 
regarded  the  penalty  of  sin  as  torment  without  end, 
and  they  stated  the  doctrine  in  unambiguous  terms. 
They  called  it  eirgmos  aidios  (eternal  imprisonment) 
and  timorion  adialeipton  (endless  torment),  while  our 
Lord  called  the  punishment  of  sin  aionion  kolasin 
(age-long  chastisement). 

Meaning  of  Scriptural  Terms. 

The  language  of  Josephus  is  used  by  the  profane 
Greeks,  but  is  never  found  in  the  New  Testament 
connected  with  punishment.  Josephus,  writing  in 
Greek  to  Jews,  frequently  employs  the  word  that  our 
Lord  used  to  define  the  duration  of  punishment 
{aionios),  but  he  applies  it  to  things  that  had  ended 
or  that  will  end.  *     Can  it  be  doubted  that  our  Lord 


'See    my    "  Aion-Aionios,"     pp.  109-14;    also    Josephus,  "Antiq." 
and  "  Jewish  Wars." 

36 


ORIGIN  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.  37 

placed  his  ban  on  the  doctrine  that  the  Jews  had  de- 
rived from  the  heathen  by  never  iising-  their  terms 
describing  it,  and  that  he  taught  a  limited  punish- 
ment by  employing  words  to  define  it  that  only 
meant  limited  duration  in  contemporaneous  litera- 
ture? JosEPHus  used  the  word  aionios  with  its  cur- 
rent meaning  of  limited  duration.  He  applies  it  to 
the  imprisonment  of  John  the  Tyrant;  to  Herod's 
reputation;  to  the  glory  acquired  by  soldiers;  to  the 
fame  of  an  army  as  a  "  happy  life  and  aionian  glory." 
He  used  the  words  as  do  the  Scriptures  to  denote 
limited  duration,  but  when  he  would  describe  end- 
less duration  he  uses  difiEerent  terms.  Of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Pharisees  he  says : 

"They  believe  *  *  *  that  wicked  spirits  are 
to  be  kept  in  an  eternal  imprisonment  (eirgmon 
aidion).  The  Pharisees  say  all  souls  are  incorruptible, 
but  while  those  of  good  men  are  removed  into  other 
bodies  those  of  bad  men  are  subject  to  eternal  pun- 
ishment" {aidios  timorid).  Elsewhere  he  says  that 
the  Essenes,  "allot  to  bad  souls  a  dark,  tempestu- 
ous place,  full  of  never-ceasing  torment  {timoria 
adialeipton)^  where  they  suffer  a  deathless  torment  " 
(athanaton  tiuiorioii).  Aidion  axi^athanatomxQ  his 
favorite  terms  for  duration,  and  timoria  (torment) 
for  punishment. 

Philo,  who  was  contemporary  with  Christ,  gen- 
erally used  aidion  to  denote  endless,  and  aionion  tem- 
porary duration.     He  uses  the  exact 
Philo's  Use  phraseology  of  Matt,   xxv:  46,  pre- 

of  the  Words.         cisely  as  Christ  used  it:     "  It  is  bet- 
ter not   to  promise  than  not  to  give 
prompt  assistance,  for  no  blame  follows  in  the  former 


38   UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

case,  but  in  the  latter  there  is  dissatisfaction  from 
the  weaker  class,  and  a  deep  hatred  and  seonian  p  an- 
ishment  (chastisement)  from  such  as  are  more  pow- 
erful. "  Here  we  have  the  precise  terms  employed 
by  our  Lord,  which  show  that  awmon  did  not  mean 
endless  but  did  mean  limited  duration  in  the  time 
of  Christ.  Philo  adopts  athanaton,  ateleuteton  or 
aidion  to  denote  endless,  and  aionion  temporary  du- 
ration.   In  one  place  occurs  this  sentence  concerning 

the  wicked :  tpiv  aTroOvrja-KOVTa  del  kol  rpoirov  Tiva  Odvarov 
aOdvarov  ojTro/xetvwv  kol  aTtXevTrjTov  "  to  live  always  dying, 
and  to  undergo,  as  it  were,  an  immortal  and  intermin- 
able death.  "^  Stephens,  in  his  valuable  "Thesaurus, " 
quotes  from  a  Jewish  work :  "  These  they  called  aionios, 
hearing  that  they  had  performed  the  sacred  rites  for 
three  entire  generations."^  This  shows  conclusively 
that  the  expression  "three  generations"  was  then 
one  full  equivalent  of  aionion.  Now,  these  eminent 
scholars  were  Jews  who  wrote  in  Greek,  and  who  cer- 
tainly knew  the  meaning  of  the  words  they  employed, 
and  they  give  to  the  aeonian  words  the  sense  of  in- 
definite duration,  to  be  determined  in  any  case  by  the 
scope  of  the  subject.  Had  our  Lord  intended  to  in- 
culcate the  doctrine  of  the  Pharisees,  he  would  have 
used  the  terms  by  which  they  described  it.  But  his 
word  defining  the  duration  of  punishment  was  aion- 
ion^ while  their  words  are  aidion^  adialeipton  and 
athanaton.  Instead  of  saying  with  Philo  and  Jo- 
seph us,    thanaton  athanaton,  deathless  or  immortal 

*"De  Prjemils"  and  "  Poenis"  Tom.  II,  pp.  19-20.  Mangey's  edition. 
Dollinger  quoted  by  Beecher.  Philo  was  learned  in  Greek  philosophy,  and 
especially  reverenced  Plato.    His  use  of  Greek  is  of  the  highest  authority. 

'"Solom.  Parab." 


ORIGLN  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.  39 

death;  eirgmon  aidion,  eternal  imprisonment;  aidion 
tiniorioii,  eternal  torment;  and  tJianaton  ateleuteton, 
interminable  death,  he  used  aionioji  kolasin^  an  ad- 
jective in  universal  use  for  limited  duration,  and  a 
noun  denoting  suffering  issuing  in  amendment.  The 
word  by  which  our  Lord  describes  punishment  is  the 
word  kolasin,  which  is  thus  defined :  ' '  Chastise- 
ment, punishment."  "The  trimming  of  the  luxuri- 
ant branches  of  a  tree  or  vine  to  improve  it  and 
make  it  fruitful."  "The  act  of  clipping  or  pruning 
— restriction,  restraint,  reproof, check,  chastisement.  " 
"The  kind  of  punishment  which  tends  to  the  im- 
provement of  the  criminal  is  what  the  Greek  philoso- 
phers called  kolasis  or  chastisement."  "Pruning, 
checking,  punishment,  chastisement,  correction." 
"Do  we  want  to  know  what  was  uppermost 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  formed  the  word  for 
punishment?  The  Latin  poena  or  punio,  to  pun- 
ish, the  root  pu  in  Sanscrit,  which  means  to 
cleanse,  to  purify,  tells  us  that  the  Latin  derivation 
was  originally  formed,  not  to  express  mere  striking 
or  torture,  but  cleansing,  correcting,  delivering  from 
the  stain  of  sin."  *  That  it  had  this  meaning  in  Greek 
usage,  see  Plato:  "For  the  natural  or  accidental 
evils  of  others  no  one  gets  angry,  or  admonishes, 
or  teaches,  or  punishes  {kolazei)  them,  but  we  pity 
those  afflicted  with  such  misfortune  *  *  *  for  if, 
O  Socrates,  if  you  will  consider  what  is  the  design 
of  punishing  {kolazein)  the  wicked,  this  of  itself  will 
show  you  that  men  think  virtue  something  that  may 
be  acquired;  for  no  one  punishes  {kolazei)  the  wicked, 

*  Donnegan,  Grotius,  Liddell,  Max  Miiller,  Beecher.  Hist.  Doc.  Fut.  Ret. 
pp.  73-75. 


40     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

looking  to  the  past  only  simply  for  the  wrong  he  has 
done — that  is,  no  one  does  this  thing  who  does  not 
act  like  a  wild  beast ;  desiring  only  revenge,  without 
thought.  Hence,  he  who  seeks  to  punish  {kolazein) 
with  reason  does  not  punish  for  the  sake  of  the  past 
wrong  deed,  *  *  *  but  for  the  sake  of  the  future, 
that  neither  the  man  himself  who  is  punished  may 
do  wrong  again,  nor  any  other  who  has  seen  him 
chastised.  And  he  who  entertains  this  thought  must 
believe  that  virtue  may  be  taught,  and  he  punishes 
{kolazei)  for  the  purpose  of  deterring  from  wicked- 
ness?"^ 

So  of  the  place  of  punishment  {Gehenna)  the  Jews 
at  the  time  of  Christ  never  understood  it  to  denote 
endless  punishment.  The  reader  of 
Farrar's "Mercy  and  Judgment,  "and 
Use  of  Gehenna.  ^£^^^^^1  Hope,"  and  Windet's  "  De 
Vita  functorum  statu,"  will  find  any 
number  of  statements  from  the  Talmudic  and  other 
Jewish  authorities,  afHrming  in  the  most  explicit 
language  that  Gehenna  was  understood  by  the  people 
to  whom  our  Lord  addressed  the  word  as  a  place  or 
condition  of  temporary  duration.  They  employed 
such  terms  as  these:  "The  wicked  shall  be  judged 
in  Gehenna  until  the  righteous  say  concerning  them, 
'We  have  seen  enough.'  "  ^  "  Gehenna  is  nothing  but 
a  day  in  which  the  impious  will  be  burned."  "After 
the  last  judgment  Gehenna  exists  no  longer." 
* '  There  will  hereafter  be  no  Gehenna. "  ®  These  quo- 
tations might  be  multiplied  indefinitely  to  demon- 

*This  important  passage  maybe  found  more  fully  quoted  in  "Aion- 
Aionios." 

•Targum  of   Jonathan  on  Isaiah,  xvi;  24.    See  also  "  Aion— Aionios" 
and  "Bible  Hell.'^ 


ORIGIN  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.  41 

strate  that  the  Jews  to  whom  our  Lord  spoke  regarded 
Gehenna  as  of  limited  duration,  as  did  the  Christian 
Fathers.  Origen  in  his  reply  to  Celsus  (VI,  xxv) 
gives  an  exposition  of  Geheiina,  explaining  its  usage 
in  his  day.  He  says  it  is  an  analogue  of  the  well- 
known  valley  of  the  Son  of  Hinnom,  and  signifies  the 
fire  of  purification.  Now  observe:  Christ  carefully 
avoided  the  words  in  which  his  auditors  expressed 
endless  punishment  {aidios,  timoria  and  adialciptos), 
and  used  terms  they  did  not  use  with  that  meaning 
{aionios  kolasis),  and  employed  the  term  which  by 
universal  consent  among  the  Jews  has  no  such  mean- 
ing {Gehenna) ;  and  as  his  immediate  followers  and 
the  earliest  of  the  Fathers  pursued  exactly  the  same 
course,  is  it  not  demonstrated  that  they  intended  to 
be  understood  as  he  was  understood  ?  ^ 

Professor  Plumptre  in  a  letter  concerning  Canon 
Farrar's  sermons,  says:  "There  were  two  words 
which  the  Evangelists  might  have  used — kolasis, 
timoria.  Of  these,  the  first  carries  with  it,  by  the 
definition  of  the  greatest  of  Greek  ethical  writers, 
the  idea  of  a  reformatory  process,  (Aristotle,  Rhet. 
I,  X,  10-17).  It  is  inflicted  'for  the  sake  of  him  who 
suffers  it. '  The  second,  on  the  other  hand,  describes 
a  penalty  purely  vindictive  or  retributive.  St. 
Matthew  chose — if  we  believe  that  our  Lord  spoke 
Greek,  he  himself  chose — the  former  word,  and  not 
the  latter." 

All  the  evidence  conclusively  shows  that  the  terms 
defining    punishment — "everlasting,"     "eternal," 

'Farrar's  "Mercy  and  Judgment,"  pp.  380-381,  where  quotations  are 
given  from  the  Fourth  Century,  asserting  that  punishment  must  be  limited 
because  an  flioMWM  correction  {aionion  ko/asin),  a.s  in  Matt,  xxv,  46,  must 
be  terminable. 


42      UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

"Gehenna,"  etc.,  in  the  Scriptures  teach  its  limited 
duration,  and  were  so  regarded  by  sacred  and  pro- 
fane authors,  and  that  those  outside  of  the  Bible 
who  taught  unending  torment  always  employed  other 
words  than  those  used  by  our  Lord  and  his  disciples. 

Professor  Allen  concedes  that  the  great  promi- 
nence given  to  "hell-fire"  in  Christian  preaching  is  a 
modern  innovation.  He  says:  "There  is  more 
'blood-theology'  and  'hell-fire, '  that  is,  the  vivid  set- 
ting-forth  of  everlasting  torment  to  terrify  the  soul, 
in  one  sermon  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  or  one  harangue 
at  a  modern  'revival,'  than  can  be  found  in  the  whole 
body  of  homilies  and  epistles  through  all  the  dark 
ages  put  together.  *  *  *  Set  beside  more  mod- 
ern dispensations  the  Catholic  position  of  this  period 
(middle  ages)  is  surprisingly  merciful  and  mild.  "^ 
Whence  Came  the  Doctrine  ? 

When  we  ask  the  question:     Where  did  those  in 
the  primitive  Christian  church  who   taught  endless 
punishment    find    it,    if  not  in    the 
Of  Heathen  Bible? — we  are  met  by  these  facts: — 

Origin.  i.     The  New  Testament  was  not  in 

existence,  as  the  canon  had  not  been 
arranged.  2.  The  Old  Testament  did  not  contain 
the  doctrine.  3.  The  Pagan  and  Jewish  religions, 
the  latter  corrupted  by  heathen  accretions,  taught  it 
(Hagenbach,  I,  First  Period;  Clark's  Foreign 
Theol.  Lib.  I,  new  series.)  Westcott  tells  us:  "The 
written  Gospel  of  the  first  period  of  the  apostolic  age 
was  the  Old  Testament,  interpreted  by  the  vivid 
recollection  of  the  Savior's  ministry.     *     *     *     The 

*"  Christian  Hist,  in  its  Three  Great  Periods,"  pp.  257-8. 


ORIGIN  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.  43 

knowledge  of  the  teachings  of  Christ  *  *  *  to 
the  close  of  the  Second  Century,  were  generally  de- 
rived from  tradition,  and  not  from  writings.  The 
Old  Testament  was  still  the  great  store-house  from 
which  Christian  teachers  derived  the  sources  of  con- 
solation and  conviction."  ^  Hence  the  false  ideas 
must  have  been  brought  by  converts  from  Judaism 
or  Paganism.  The  immediate  followers  of  our 
Lord's  apostles  do  not  explicitly  treat  matters  of 
eschatology.  It  was  the  age  of  apologetics  and  not 
of  polemics.'"  The  new  revelation  of  the  Divine  Fa- 
therhood through  the  Son  occupied  the  chief  atten- 
tion of  Christians,  and  the  efforts  seem  to  have  been 
almost  exclusively  devoted  to  establish  the  truth  of 
the  Incarnation,  "God  in  Christ  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself."  We  may  reasonably  conclude  that  if 
this  great  truth  had  been  kept  constantly  in  the  fore- 
ground, uncorrupted  by  pagan  error  and  human  in- 
vention, there  would  have  been  none  of  those  false 
conceptions  of  God  that  gave  rise  to  the  horrors  of 
mediaeval  times, — and  no  occasion  in  the  Eighteenth 
and  Nineteenth  Centuries  for  the  renascence  of  orig- 
inal Christianity  in  the  form  of  Universalism.  The 
first  Christians,  however,  naturally  brought  heathen 
increments  into  their  new  faith,  so  that  very  early 
the  doctrine  of  the  annihilation  of  the  wicked,  or 
their  endless  torment,  began  to  be  avowed.  Here 
and  there  these  doctrines  appeared  from  the  very 
first,  but  the  early  writers  generally  either  state  the 


^Introduction  to  Gospels,  p.  181. 

loThe  opinions  of  the  Jews  were  modified  at  first  by  the  captivity  in 
Egypt  fifteen  centuries  before  Christ,  and  later  by  the  Babylonian  captivity, 
ending  four  hundred  years  before  Christ,  so  that  many  of  them,  the  i'hari- 
sees  especially,  no  longer  held  the  simple  doctrines  of  Moses. 


44    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

great  truths  that  legitimately  result  in  universal 
good,  or  in  unmistakable  terms  avow  the  doctrine  as 
a  revealed  truth  of  the  Christian  Scriptures.  "Num- 
bers flocked  into  the  church  who  brought  their 
heathen  ways  with  them. "  (Third  Century,  "Neo- 
platonism, " by  C.  Bigg,  D.  D.,  London:  1895,  p.  160.) 

At  first  Christianity  was  as  a  bit  of  leaven  buried 
in  foreign  elements,  modifying  and  being  modified. 
The  early  Christians  had  individual  opinions  and  idio- 
syncracies,  which  at  first  their  new  faith  did  not 
eradicate;  they  still  retained  some  of  their  former 
errors.  This  accounts  for  their  different  views  of 
the  future  world.  At  the  time  of  our  Lord's  advent  Ju- 
daism had  been  greatly  corrupted.  During  the  captiv- 
ity^^ Chaldsean,  Persian  and  Egyptian  doctrines,  and 
other  oriental  ideas  had  tinged  the  Mosaic  religion, 
and  in  Alexandria,  especially,  there  was  a  great  mix- 
ture of  borrowed  opinions  and  systems  of  faith,  it 
being  supposed  that  no  one  form  alone  was  complete 
and  sufficient,  but  that  each  system  possessed  a  por- 
tion of  the  perfect  truth.  "The  prevailing  tone  of 
mind  was  eclectic,"  and  Christianity  did  not  escape 
the  influence. 

More  than  a  century  before  the  birth  of  Christ'^ 
appeared  the  apocryphal  Book  of  Enoch,  which  con- 
tains, so  far  as  is  known,  the  earliest 
The  Apocryphal  statement  extant  of  the  doctrine  of 
Book  of  Enoch.  endless  punishment  in  any  work  of 
Jewish  origin.  It  became  very  popu- 
lar during  the  early  Christian  centuries,  and  modi- 


I'Robertson's  History  of  the  Christian  Church,  vol.  1,  pp  38-39. 
^^The  Book  of   Enoch,  translated  from  the  Ethiopian,  with  Introduction 
and  Notes.    By  Rev.  George  H.  Schodde. 


ORIGIN  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.  45 

fied,  it  may  safely  be  supposed,  the  views  of  Tatian, 
MiNucius  Felix,  Tertullian,  and  their  followers. 
It  is  referred  to  or  quoted  from  by  Barnabas,  Jus- 
tin, Clement  of  Alexandria,  Iren^us,  Origen,  Ter- 
tullian, EusEBius,  Jerome,  Hilary,  Epiphanius, 
Augustine,  and  others.  Jude  quotes  from  it  in  verses 
14  and  15,  and  refers  to  it  in  verse  6,  on  which  ac- 
count some  of  the  fathers  considered  Jude  apocry- 
phal ;  but  it  is  probable  that  Jude  quotes  Enoch  as 
Paul  quotes  the  heathen  poets,  not  to  endorse  its  doc- 
trine, but  to  illustrate  a  point,  as  writers  nowadays 
quote  fables  and  legends.  Cave,  in  the  "Lives  of 
the  Fathers, "  attributes  the  prevalence  of  the  doctrine 
of  fallen  angels  to  a  perversion  of  the  account  (Gen. 
vi:  1-4)  of  "the  sons  of  God  and  the  daughters  of 
men."  He  refers  the  prevalence  of  the  doctrine  to 
"the  authority  of  the  'Book  of  Enoch,'  (highly  valued 
by  many  in  those  days)  wherein  this  story  is  related, 
as  appears  from  the  fragments  of  it  still  extant." 
The  entire  work  is  now  accessible  through  modern 
discovery. 

A  little  later  than  Enoch  appeared  the  Book  of 
Ezra,  advocating  the  same  doctrine.  These  two 
books  were  popular  among  the  Jews  before  the  time 
of  Christ,  and  it  is  supposed,  as  the  Old  Testament 
is  silent  on  the  subject,  that  the  corrupt  traditions  of 
the  Pharisees,  of  which  our  Lord  warned  his  disciples 
to  beware,  "  were  obtained  in  part  from  these  books, 
or  from  the  Egyptian  and  Pagan  sources  whence 
they  were  derived.     At   any  rate,  though  the   Old 


i3Mark  vii,  13;  Matthew  xvi,  6,  12;  Luke  xii,  1;  Mark  viii,  15. 


46    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Testament  does  not  contain  the  doctrine,  "  Josephus, 
as  has  been  seen,  assures  us  that  the  Pharisees  of  his 
time  accepted  and  taught  it.  Of  course  they  must 
have  obtained  the  doctrine  from  uninspired  sources. 
As  these  and  possibly  other  similar  books  had 
already  corrupted  the  faith  of  the  Jews,  they  seem 
later  to  have  infused  their  virus  into  the  faith  of 
some  of  the  early  Christians.  Nothing  is  better 
established  in  history  than  that  the  doctrine  of  endless 
punishment,  as  held  by  the  Christian  church  in  me- 
diaeval times,  was  of  Egyptian  origin,  '^  and  that  for 
purposes  of  state  it  and  its  accessories  were  adopted 
by  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  Montesquieu  states  that 
**  Romulus,  Tatius  and  Numa  enslaved  the  gods  to 
politics, "  and  made  religion  for  the  state. 

Classic  scholars  know  that  the  heathen  hell  was 

early  copied  by  the  Catholic  church,  and  that  almost 

its  entire  details  afterwards  entered 

into  the  creeds  of  Catholic  and   Pro- 
ied  from  Heathen       ^  ^11 

testant  churches  up  to  a  century  ago. 

Any  reader  may  see   this  who  will 

consult  Pagan  literature^®  and  writers  on  the  opinions 

of  the  ancients.     And  not  only  this,  but  the  heathen 

writers   declare  that  the  doctrine  was  invented  to 

awe  and  control   the   multitude.     Polybius  writes: 

*' Since  the  multitude  is  ever  fickle     *     *     *     there 

is  no  other  way  to  keep  them  in  order  but  by  fear  of 

the  invisible  world ;  on  which  account  our  ancestors 

seem   to   me   to  have  acted  judiciously   when  they 


"Milman  Hist.  Jews;  Warburton's  Divine  Legation;  Jahn,  Archaeology. 
i^Warburton.     Leland's  Necessity  of  Divine  Revelation. 
I'Virgil's  .(Eneid.  Apollodorus,  Hesiod,  Herodotus,  Plutarch,  Diodorus 
Siculus,  etc. 


ORIGIN  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.  47 

contrived  to  bring  into  the  popular  belief  these  no- 
tions of  the  gods  and  of  the  infernal  regions. "  Sen- 
eca says:  "Those  things  which  make  the  infernal 
regions  terrible,  the  darkness,  the  prison,  the  river 
of  flaming  fire,  the  judgment  seat,  etc.,  are  all  a 
fable."  LivY  declares  that  Numa  invented  the  doc- 
trine, * '  a  most  efBcacious  means  of  governing  an 
ignorant  and  barbarous  populace."  Strabo  writes: 
' '  The  multitude  are  restrained  from  vice  by  the  pun- 
ishments the  gods  are  said  to  inflict  upon  offenders, 
*  *  *  for  it  is  impossible  to  govern  the  crowd  of 
women  and  all  the  common  rabble  by  philosophical 
reasoning:  these  things  the  legislators  used  as  scare- 
crows to  terrify  the  childish  multitude."  Similar 
language  is  found  in  Dionysius  Halicarnassus, 
Plato,  and  other  writers.  History  records  nothing 
more  distinctly  than  that  the  Greek  and  Roman 
Pagans  borrowed  of  the  Egyptians,  and  that  some  of 
the  early  Christians  unconsciously  absorbed,  or  studi- 
ously appropriated,  the  doctrines  of  the  Egyptians, 
Greeks  and  Romans  concerning  post-mortem  punish- 
ment, and  gradually  corrupted  the  "  simplicity  that 
is  in  Christ"  "  by  the  inventions  of  antiquity,  as  from 
the  same  sources  the  Jews  at  the  time  of  Christ  had 
already  corrupted  their  religion.  '^  What  more  nat- 
ural than  that  the  small  reservoir  of  Christian  truth 
should  be  contaminated  by  the  opinions  that  converts 
from  all  these  sources  brought  with  them  into  their 
new  religion  at  first,  and  later  that  the  Roman  Cath- 


ini  Cor.  xi,  3. 

i^Milman's  Gibbon,  Murdock's  Mosheim,  Enfield's  Hist.  Philos.,  Univer- 
salist  Expositor,  1853. 


48    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

olic  priests  and  Pagan  legislators  should  seize  them 
as  engines  of  power  by  which  to  control  the  world? 
CoQUEREL  describes  the  effect  of  the  irruption 
of  Pagans  into  the  early  Christian  church:  "The, 
at  first,  gradual  entrance  and  soon  rapid  irruption  of 
an  idolatrous  multitude  into  the  bosom  of  Christian- 
ity was  not  effected  without  detriment  to  the  truth. 
The  Christianity  of  Jesus  was  too  lofty,  too  pure,  for 
this  multitude  escaped  from  the  degrading  cults  of 
Olympus.  The  Pagans  were  not  able  to  enter  efi 
masse  into  the  church  without  bringing  to  it  their 
habits,  their  tastes,  and  some  of  their  ideas. "  ''  Mil- 
man  and  Neander  think^°  that  old  Jewish  prejudices 
could  not  be  extirpated  in  the  proselytes  of  the  in- 
fant church,  and  that  latent  Judaism  lurked  in  it  and 
was  continued  into  the  darker  ages.  Chrysostom 
complains  that  the  Christians  of  his  time  (the  Fourth 
Century)  were  "half  Jews."  Enfield^*  declares  that 
converts  from  the  schools  of  Pagan  philosophy  inter- 
wove their  old  errors  with  the  simple  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity until  * '  heathen  and  Christian  doctrines  were 
still  more  intimately  blended  *  *  *  and  both 
were  almost  entirely  lost  in  the  thick  clouds  of  ignor- 
ance and  barbarism  which  covered  the  earth.  *  *  * 
The  fathers  of  the  church  departed  from  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  apostolic  church  and  corrupted  the 
purity  of  the  Christian  faith. "  Hagenbach  reminds 
us  that^^  "  There  were  two  errors  which  the  new- 
born Christianity  had  to  guard  against  if  it  was  not 

wCoquerel's  First  Historical  Transformations  of  Christianity. 
80 See  Conybeare's  "  Paul,"  Vol.  I,  Chapters  14, 15. 
«i  See  also  Priestley's  "  Corruptions  of  Christianity." 
2«Hist.  Doct.  ISec.  22. 


ORIGIN  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.  49 

to  lose  its  peculiar  religious  features,  and  disappear 
in  one  of  the  already  existing  religions :  against  a  re- 
lapse into  Judaism  on  the  one  side,  and  against  a  mix- 
ture with  Paganism  and  speculations  borrowed  from 
it,  and  a  mythologizing  tendency  on  the  other. "  The 
Sibylline  Oracles,  advocating  universal  restoration ; 
Philo,  who  taught  annihilation,  and  Enoch  and  Ezra, 
who  taught  endless  punishment,  were  all  read  by  the 
early  Christians,  and  no  doubt  exerted  an  influence 
in  forming  early  opinions. 

The  Edinburgh  Review  concedes  that  "upon  a  full 
inspection   it  will   be   seen   that   the   corruption  of 
Christianity  was  itself  the  effect  of 
Early  Christianity     that  vitiated  state  of  the  human  mind, 
Adulterated.  of  which  the  vices  of  the  government 

were  the  great  and  primary  cause. " 
"  That  the  Christian  religion  suffered  much  from  the 
influence  of  the  Gentile  philosophy  is  unquestiona- 
ble."^^ Dr.  Middleton,  in  a  famous  "Letter  from 
Rome, "  shows  that  from  the  pantheon  down  heathen 
temples,  shrines  and  altars  were  taken  by  the  early 
church,  and  so  used  that  Pagans  could  employ  them 
as  well  as  Christians,  and  retain  their  old  supersti- 
tions and  errors  while  professing  Christianity.  In 
other  words,  that  much  of  Paganism,  after  the  First 
Century  or  two,  remained  in  and  corrupted  Christian- 
ity. MosHEiM  writes  that  "  no  one  objected  (in  the 
Fifth  Century)  to  Christians  retaining  the  opinions  of 
their  Pagan  ancestors ;"  and  T  ytler  describes  the  con- 
fusion that  resulted  from  the  mixture  of  Pagan  phi- 
losophy with  the   plain  and  simple  doctrines  of  the 

*8  Vaughan's  Causes  of  the  Corruption  of  Christianity;  also  Casaubon 
and  Blunt's  "Vestiges." 


50     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Christian  religion,  from  which  the  church  in  its  in- 
fant state  "suffered  in  a  most  essential  manner." 
The  Rev.  T.  B.  Thayer,  D.  D.,'*  thinks  that  the 
faith  of  the  early  Christian  church  *'  of  the  orthodox 
party  was  one-half  Christian,  one-quarter  Jewish,  and 
one-quarter  Pagan;  while  that  of  the  gnostic  party 
was  about  one-quarter  Christian  and  three-quarters 
philosophical  Paganism. "  The  purpose  of  many  of 
the  fathers  seems  to  have  been  to  bridge  the  abyss 
between  Paganism  and  Christianity,  and,  for  the 
sake  of  proselytes,  to  tolerate  Pagan  doctrine.  Says 
Merivale:  In  the  Fifth  Century,  "Paganism  was 
assimilated,  not  extirpated,  and  Christendom  has 
suffered  from  it  more  or  less  ever  since.  *  *  * 
The  church  *  *  *  was  content  to  make  terms  with 
what  survived  of  Paganism,  content  to  lose  even  more 
than  it  gained  in  an  unholy  alliance  with  superstition 
and  idolatry;  enticing,  no  doubt,  many  of  the  vul- 
gar, and  some  even  of  the  more  intelligent,  to  a  nom- 
inal acceptance  of  the  Christian  faith,  but  conniving 
at  the  surrender  by  the  great  mass  of  its  own  bap- 
tized members  of  the  highest  and  purest  of  their 
spiritual  acquisitions.  "^^  It  is  difficult  to  learn  just  how 
much  surrounding  influences  affected  ancient  or 
modem  Christians,  for,  asScHAFF  says  (Hist.  Apos. 
Ch.  p.  23):  "The  theological  views  of  the  Greek 
Fathers  were  modified  to  a  considerable  extent  by 
Platonism ;  those  of  the  mediaeval  schoolmen,  by  the 
logic  and  dialectics  of  Aristotle;  those  of  the  later 
times  by  the  system  of  Descartes,  Spinoza,  Bacon, 
Locke,  Leibnitz,  Kant,  Fries,  Fichte,   Schelling, 

2*  Hist.  Doct.  Endless  Punishment,  pp.  192-193. 
«  Early  Church  History,  pp.  159-160. 


ORIGIN  OF  ENDLESS  PUNISHMENT.  51 

and  Hegel.  Few  scientific  divines  can  absolutely 
emancipate  themselves  from  the  influence  of  the  phi- 
losophy and  public  opinion  of  their  age,  and  when 
they  do  they  have  commonly  their  own  philosophy, etc. " 
That  the  Old  Testament  does  not  teach  even  post- 
mortem punishment  is  universally  conceded  by  schol- 
ars, as  has  been  seen;  and  that  the 
Original  Greek  Egyptians,  and  Greek  and  Roman 
New  Testament.  Pagans  did,  is  shown  already. 
That  the  doctrine  was  early  in  the 
Christian  church,  is  equally  evident.  As  the  earlv 
Christians  did  not  obtain  it  from  the  Old  Testament, 
which  does  not  contain  it,  and  as  it  was  already  a 
Pagan  doctrine,  where  could  they  have  procured  it 
except  from  heathen  sources?  And  as  Universalism 
was  nowhere  taught,  and  as  the  first  Universalist 
Christians  after  the  apostles  were  Greeks,  perfectly 
familiar  with  the  language  of  the  New  Testament, 
where  else  could  they  have  found  their  faith  than 
where  they  declare  they  found  it,  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment? How  can  it  be  supposed  that  the  Latins  were 
correct  in  claiming  that  the  Greek  Scriptures  teach  a 
doctrine  that  the  Greeks  themselves  did  not  find 
therein?  And  how  can  the  Greek  fathers  in  the 
primitive  church  mistake  when  they  understand  our 
Lord  and  his  apostles  to  teach  universal  restoration? 
"It  maybe  well  to  note  here,  that  after  the  third 
century  the  descent  of  the  church  into  errors  of  doc- 
trine and  practice  grew  more  rapid.  The  worship 
of  Jesus,  of  Mary,  of  saints,  of  relics,  etc. ,  followed 
each  other,  Mary  was  called 'the  Mother  of  God,' 
'the  Queen  of  Heaven. '  As  God  began  to  be  rep- 
resented more  stern,   implacable,  cruel,   the  people 


52     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

worshiped  Jesus  to  induce  him  to  placate  his  Father's 
wrath;  and  then  as  the  Son  was  held  up  as  the 
severe  judge  of  sinners  and  the  executioner  of  the 
Father's  vengeance,  men  prayed  Mary  to  mollify  the 
anger  of  her  God-child ;  and  when  she  became  un- 
feeling or  lacked  influence,  they  turned  to  Joseph 
and  other  saints,  and  to  martyrs,  to  intercede  with 
their  cold,  implacable  superiors.  Thus  theology 
became  more  hard  and  merciless — hell  was  intensi- 
fied, and  enlarged,  and  eternized — heaven  shrunk, 
and  receded,  and  lost  its  compassion — woman  (de- 
spite the  deification  of  Mary)  was  regarded  as  weak 
and  despicable — the  Agapae  were  abolished  and  the 
Eucharist  deified,  and  its  cup  withheld  from  the  peo- 
ple— and  woman  deemed  too  impure  to  touch  it! 
As  among  the  heathen  Romans,  faith  and  reverence 
decreased  as  their  gods  were  multiplied,  so  here, 
as  objects  of  worship  were  increased,  familiarity 
bred  only  sensuality,  and  sensuous  worship  drove  out 
virtue  and  veneration,  until,  in  the  language  of  Mrs. 
Jameson's  "Legends  of  the  Madonna,"  (Int.  p. 
xxxi) :  One  of  the  frescoes  in  the  Vatican  repre- 
sents GiULiA  Farnese  (a  noted  impure  woman  and 
mistress  of  the  pope !)  in  the  character  of  the  Ma- 
donna, and  Pope  Alexander  VI.  (the  drunken,  un- 
chaste, beastly !)  kneeling  at  her  feet  in  the  charac- 
ter of  a  votary!  Under  the  influence  of  the  Medici, 
the  churches  of  Florence  were  filled  with  pictures  of 
the  Virgin  in  which  the  only  thing  aimed  at  was  a 
meretricious  beauty.  Savonarola  thundered  from 
his  pulpit  in  the  garden  of  S.  Marco  against  these 
impieties. "  ^^ 

*•  Universalist  Quarterly,  January,  1883. 


IV. 

DOCTRINES    OF    "MITIGATION"   AND    OF 
"  RESERVE  " 

There  was  no  controversy  among  Christians  over 
the  duration  of  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  for  at 
least  three  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Christ. 
Scriptural  terms  were  used  with  their  Scriptural 
meanings,  and  while  it  is  not  probable  that  univer- 
sal restoration  was  polemically  or  dogmatically  an- 
nounced, it  is  equally  probable  that  the  endless 
duration  of  punishment  was  not  taught  until  heathen 
corruptions  had  adulterated  Christian  truth.  God's 
fatherhood  and  boundless  love,  and  the  work  of 
Christ  in  man's  behalf  were  dwelt  upon,  accompa- 
nied by  the  announcement  of  the  fearful  consequences 
of  sin;  but  when  those  consequences,  through  Pagan 
influences,  came  to  be  regarded  as  endless  in  dura- 
tion, then  the  antidotal  truth  of  universal  salvation 
assumed  prominence  through  Clement,  Origen,  and 
other  Alexandrine  fathers  Even  when  some  of  the 
early  Christians  had  so  far  been  overcome  by  heathen 
error  as  to  accept  the  dogma  of  endless  torment  for 
the  wicked,  they  had  no  hard  words  for  those  who 
believed  in  universal  restoration,  and  did  not  even 
controvert  their  views.  The  doctrines  of  Prayer 
for  the  Dead,  and  of  Christ  Preaching  to  those  in 
Hades,  and  of  Mitigation,  were  humane  teachings  of 
the  primitive  Christians  that  were  subsequently  dis- 
carded. 

S3 


54     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

The  doctrine  of  Mitigation  was,  that   for  some 
good  deed  on  earth,  the  damned  in  hell  would  occa- 
sionally be  let  out  on   a  respite  or 
"Mitigation"  furlough,  and  have  surcease  of  tor- 

Explained,  ment.       This  doctrine  of  mitigation 

was  quite  general  among  the  fathers 
when  they  came  to  advocate  the  Pagan  dogma.  In 
fact,  endless  punishment  in  all  its  enormity,  desti- 
tute of  all  benevolent  features,  was  not  fully  de- 
veloped until  Protestantism  was  born,  and  prayers 
for  the  dead,  mitigation  of  the  condition  of  the 
"lost,"  and  other  softening  features  were  repudi- 
ated. ' 

It  was  taught  that  the  worst  sinners — Judas  him- 
self, even — had  furloughs  from  hell  for  good  deeds 
done  on  earth.  Matthew  Arnold  embodies  one  of 
the  legends  in  his  poem  of  St.  Brandon.  The  saint 
once  met,  on  an  iceberg  on  the  ocean,  the  soul  of 
Judas  Iscariot,  released  from  hell  for  awhile,  who 
explains  his  respite.  He  had  once  given  a  cloak  to  a 
leper  in  Joppa,  and  so  he  says — 

"  Once  every  year,  when  carols  wake 
On  earth  the  Christmas  night's  repose, 

Arising  from  the  sinner's  lake 
I  journey  to  these  healing  snows. 

"  I  stanch  with  ice  my  burning  breast. 
With  silence  calm  my  burning  brain; 

O  Brandon,  to  this  hour  of  rest. 
That  Joppan  leper's  ease  was  pain." 

It  remained  for  Protestanism  to  discard  all  the 
softening  features  that  Catholicism  had  added  to  the 
bequest  of  heathenism  to  Christianity,  and  to  give 

1  Christian  History  in  Three  Great  Periods,  pp.  257,  8, 


DOCTRINES  OF  MITIGATION  AND  OF  RESERVE.     55 

the  world  the  unmitigated  horror  that  Protestantism 

taught  from  the  Sixteenth  to  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

We   cannot  read  the  patristic  literature    under- 

standingly  unless  we  constantly  bear  in  mind    the 

early  fathers'  doctrine  of  "CEcono- 
The  Doctrine  my,"  or    "  Reserve.  "^      Plato    dis- 

of  "Reserve."  tinctly  taught  it,^  and  says  that  error 

may  be  used  as  a  medicine.  He  jus- 
tifies the  use  of  the  * '  medicinal  lie. "  The  resort  of 
the  early  fathers  to  the  esoteric  is  no  doubt  derived 
from  Plato.  Origen  almost  quotes  him  when  he 
says  that  sometimes  fictitious  threats  are  necessary 
to  secure  obedience,  as  when  Solon  had  purposely 
given  imperfect  laws.  Many,  in  and  out  of  the 
church,  held  that  the  wise  possessor  of  truth  might 
hold  it  in  secret,  when  its  impartation  to  the  igno- 
rant would  seem  to  be  fraught  with  danger,  and  that 
error  might  be  properly  substituted.  The  object 
was  to  save  ' '  Christians  of  the  simpler  sort"  from 
waters  too  deep  for  them.  It  is  possible  to  defend 
the  practice  if  it  be  taken  to  represent  the  method  of 
a  skillful  teacher,  who  will  not  confuse  the  learner 
with  principles  beyond  his  comprehension.*  Giese- 
ler  remarks  that  **the  Alexandrians  regarded  a  cer- 
tain accommodation  as  necessary,  which  ventures  to 
make  use  even  of  falsehood  for  the  attainment  of  a 
good  end;  nay,  which  was  even  obliged  to  do  so." 
N E AND ER  declares  that  "the  Orientals,  according  to 
their  theory  of  oeconomy,  allowed  themselves  many 


*  Bigg's  Platonists  of  Alexandria,  p.  58. 

«  Grote's  Plato,  Vol.  Ill,  xxxiii,  pp.  56,  7. 

♦  J.  H.  Newman,  Arians;  Apologia  Pro  Vita  Sua 


56     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

liberties    not  to   be  reconciled   with  the  strict  laws 
of  veracity.  "^ 

Some  of  the  fathers  who  had  achieved  a  faith  in 
Universalism,  were  influenced  by  the  mischievous 
notion  that  it  was  to  be  held  esoterically,  cherished  in 
secret,  or  only  communicated  to  the  chosen  few, — 
withheld  from  the  multitude,  who  would  not  appre- 
ciate it,  and  even  that  the  opposite  error  would,  with 
some  sinners,  be  more  beneficial  than  the  truth. 
Clement  of  Alexandria  admits  that  he  does  not  write 
or  speak  certain  truths.  Origen  claims  that  there 
are  doctrines  not  to  be  communicated  to  the  ignorant. 
Clement  says:  "They  are  not  in  reality  liars  who 
use  circumlocution  ^  (rvfxirepi<}>€p6fxevoi  because  of  the 
oeconomy  of  salvation. "  Origen  refers  to  truths  that 
must  not  be  written.'  Gieseler  declares  that  the 
Alexandrians  taught  that  falsehood  could  be  used  to 
accomplish  the  good  of  men.  Origen  said  that  "all 
that  might  be  said  on  this  theme  is  not  expedient  to 
explain  now,  or  to  all.  For  the  mass  need  no  further 
teaching  on  account  of  those  who  hardly  through  the 
fear  of  seonian  punishment  restrain  their  reckless- 
ness."  The  reader  of  the  patristic  literature  sees 
this  opinion  frequently,  and  unquestionably  it  caused 
many  to  hold  out  threats  to  the  multitude  in  order  to 
restrain  them ;  threats  that  they  did  not  themselves 
believe  would  be  executed.^ 


I"  Allin,  Univ.  Asserted,  shows  at  length  the  prevalence  of  the  doctrine  of 
"reserve"  among  the  early  Christians. 

*Stromata. 

'Against  Celsus  I,  vii;  and  on  Romans  ii. 

*"St.  Basil  distinguishes  in  Christianity  between  Kr^pvy/xaTa  what  is 
openly  proclaimed  and  Soy/Aara  which  are  kept  secret."  Max  MiilJer, 
Theosophy  or  Psychology,     Lect.  xiv. 


DOCTRINES  OF  MITIGATION  AND  OF  RESERVE.     57 

The  gross  and  carnal  interpretation  given  to  parts 
of  the  Gospel,  causing  some,  as  Origen  said,  to  "be- 
lieve of  God  what  would  not  be  believed  of  the  crud- 
est of  mankind,"  caused  him  to  dwell  upon  the  duty 
of  reserve,  which  he  does  in  many  of  his  homilies. 
He  says  that  he  can  not  fully  express  himself  on  the 
mystery  of  eternal  punishment  in  an  exoteric  state- 
ment.' The  reserve  advocated  and  practised  by 
Origen  and  the  Alexandrians  was,  says  Bigg,  "the 
screen  of  an  esoteric  belief."  Beecher  reminds  his 
readers  that  while  it  was  common  with  Pagan  philoso- 
phers to  teach  false  doctrines  to  the  masses  with  the 
mistaken  idea  that  they  were  needful,  '  'the  fathers 
of  the  Christian  church  did  not  escape  the  infection 
of  this  leprosy  of  pious  fraud;"  and  he  quotes  Nean- 
DER  to  show  that  Chrysostom  was  guilty  of  it,  and 
also  Gregory  Nazianzen,  Athanasius,  and  Basil 
the  Great.  The  prevalence  of  this  fraus  pia  in  the 
early  centuries  is  well  known  to  scholars.  After 
saying  that  the  Sibylline  Oracles  were  probably 
forged  by  a  gnostic,  Mosheim  says:  "I  cannot  yet 
take  upon  me  to  acquit  the  most  strictly  orthodox 
from  all  participation  in  this  species  of  criminality ; 
for  it  appears  from  evidence  superior  to  all  excep- 
tion that  a  pernicious  maxim  was  current,  *  *  * 
namely,  that  those  who  made  it  their  business  to  de- 
ceive with  a  view  of  promoting  the  cause  of  truth, 
were  deserving  rather  of  commendation  than  cen- 
sure." 

It  seems  to  have  been  held  that  '  'faith,  the  foun- 

eAg.  Cels.;  De  Prin. 


58     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

dation  of  Christian  knowledge,  was  fitted  only  for 
the  rnde  mass,  the  animal  men,  who 
What  Was  Held  were  incapable  of  higher  things. 
as  to  Doctrine.  Far  above  these  were  the  privileged 
natures,  the  men  of  intellect,  or 
spiritual  men,  whose  vocation  was  not  to  believe  but 
to  know."^'' 

The  ecclesiastical  historians  class  as  esoteric 
believers,  Chrysostom  and  Gregory  Nazianzen; 
and  Beecher  names  Athanasius  and  Basil  the 
Great  as  in  the  same  category;  and  Beech- 
er remarks:  "We  cannot  fully  understand  such 
a  proclamation  of  future  endless  punishment  as 
has  been  described,  while  it  was  not  believed,  until 
we  consider  the  influence  of  Plato  on  the  age. 
*  *  *  Socrates  is  introduced  as  saying  in  Grote's 
Plato:  '  It  is  indispensable  that  this  fiction  should 
be  circulated  and  accredited  as  the  fundamental,  con- 
secrated, unquestioned  creed  of  the  whole  city,  from 
which  the  feeling  of  harmony  and  brotherhood 
among  the  citizens  springs. '  Such  principles,  as  a 
leprosy,  had  corrupted  the  whole  community,  and 
especially  the  leaders.  In  the  Roman  Empire  pagan 
magistrates  and  priests  appealed  to  retribution  in 
Tartarus,  of  which  they  had  no  belief,  to  affect  the 
masses.  This  does  not  excuse,  but  it  explains  the 
preaching  of  eternal  punishment  by  men  who  did 
not  believe  it.  They  dared  not  entrust  the  truth  to 
the  masses,  and  so  held  it  in  reserve — to  deter  men 
from  sin. " 

General  as  was  the  confession  of  a  belief  in  univer- 


1"  Dean  Mansell's  Gnostic  Heresies  of  the  First  and  Second  Centuries. 
Introduction,  p.  10. 


DOCTRINES  OF  MITIGATION  AND  OF  RESERVE.     59 

sal  salvation  m  the  church's  first  and  best  three  cen- 
turies, there  is  ample  reason  to  believe  that  it  was 
the  secret  belief  of  more  than  gave  expression  to  it, 
and  that  many  a  one  who  proclaimed  a  partial  salva- 
tion, in  his  secret  "heart  of  heart"  agreed  with  the 
greatest  of  the  church's  fathers  during  the  first  four 
hundred  years  of  our  era,  that  Christ  would  achieve 
a  universal  triumph,  and  that  God  would  ultimately 
reign  in  all  hearts. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  many  of  the  fathers 
threatened    severer    penalties    than    they   believed 

would  be  visited  on  sinners,  impelled 
Modern  Theolo-  to  utter  them  because  they  consid- 
gians  Equivocal.       ered  them  to  be  more  salutary  with 

the  masses  than  the  truth  itself.  So 
that  we  may  believe  that  some  of  the  patristic 
writers  who  seem  to  teach  endless  punishment  did 
not  believe  it.  Others,  we  know,  who  accepted  uni- 
versal restoration  employed,  for  the  sake  of  deterring 
sinners,  threats  that  are  inconsistent,  literally  interpre- 
ted, with  that  doctrine.  This  disposition  to  conceal  the 
truth  has  actuated  many  a  modem  theologian.  In  Ser- 
mon XXXV,  on  the  eternity  of  hell  torments.  Arch- 
bishop TiLLOTSoN,  while  he  argues  for  the  endless 
duration  of  punishment,  suggests  that  the  Judge  has 
the  right  to  omit  inflicting  it  if  he  shall  see  it  incon- 
sistent with  righteousness  or  goodness  to  make  sin- 
ners miserable  forever,  and  Burnet  urges:  "  What- 
ever your  opinion  is  within  yourself,  and  in  your 
breast,  concerning  these  punishments,  whether  they 
are  eternal  or  not,  yet  always  with  the  people,  and 
when  you  preach  to  the  people,  use  the  received  doc- 
trine and  the  received  words  in  the  sense  in  which 


6o     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE   EARLY  CENTURIES. 

the  people  receive  them, "  It  is  certainly  allowable 
to  think  that  many  an  ancient  timid  teacher  dis- 
covered the  truth  without  daring  to  entrust  it  to  the 
mass  of  mankind. 

Theophilus  of  Alexandria  proposed  making  Sy- 
NESius  of  Cyrene,  bishop.     The  latter  said:     "The 

philosophic  intelligence,  in  short, 
Even  Lying  while  it  beholds  the  truth,  admits  the 

Defended.  necessity  of  lying.   Light  corresponds 

to  truth,  but  the  eye  is  dull  of  vision ; 
it  can  not  without  injury  gaze  on  the  infinite  light. 
As  twilight  is  more  comfortable  for  the  eye,  so,  I 
hold,  is  falsehood  for  the  common  run  of  people.  The 
truth  can  only  be  harmful  for  those  who  are  unable 
to  gaze  on  the  reality.  If  the  laws  of  the  priesthood 
permit  me  to  hold  this  position,  then  I  can  accept  con- 
secration, keeping  my  philosophy  to  myself  at  home, 
and  preaching  fables  out  of  doors."" 

"  Neoplatonism,  by  C.  Bigg,  D.  D.    London:  1895,  p.  339. 


V. 

TWO  KINDRED  TOPICS. 

The  early  Christian  church  almost,  if  not  quite, 
universally  believed  that  Christ  made  proclamation 

of  the  Gospel  to  the  dead  in  Hades. 
Gospel  Preached  Says  Huidekoper;  "  In  the  Second 
to  the  Dead.  and  Third  Centuries  every  branch  and 

division  of  Christians  believed  that 
Christ  preached  to  the  departed."*  Dietelmaier 
declares^  this  doctrine  was  believed  by  all  Christians. 
Of  course,  if  souls  were  placed  where  their  doom 
was  irretrievable  salvation  would  not  be  offered  to 
them ;  whence  it  follows  that  the  early  Christians  be- 
lieved in  post-mortem  probation.  Allin  says  that 
"  some  writers  teach  that  the  apostles  also  preached 
in  Hades.  Some  say  that  the  Blessed  Virgin  did 
the  same.  Some  even  say  that  Simeon  went  before 
Christ  to  Hades."  All  these  testimonies  go  to 
show  that  the  earliest  of  the  fathers  did  not  regard 
the  grave  as  the  dead-line  which  the  love  of  God 
could  not  cross,  but  that  the  door  of  mercy  is  open 
hereafter  as  here.  "The  Platonic  doctrine  of  a  sep- 
arate state,  where  the  spirits  of  the  departed  are 
purified,  and  on  which  the  later  doctrine  of  purga- 

1  An  excellent  resume  of  the  opinions  of  the  fathers  on  Christ's  descent 
into  Hades,  and  preaching  the  gospel  to  the  dead,  is  Huidekoper's  "The 
Belief  of  the  First  Three  Centuries  Concernins  Christ's  Mission  to  the  Un- 
derworld;" also  Huidekoper's  "Indirect  Testimony  to  the  Gospels;"  also 
Dean  Pluraptre's  "Spirits  in  Prison."     London:  1884. 

^Historia  Dogmatis  de  Descensu  Christi  ad  Inferos.    J.  A.  Dietelmaier. 

6i 


62     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

tory  was  founded,  was  approved  by  all  the  expositors 
of  Christianity  who  were  of  the  Alexandrian  school, 
as  was  the  custom  of  performing  religious  services  at 
the  tombs  of  the  dead.  Nor  was  there  much  differ- ' 
ence  between  them  and  Tertullian  in  these  particu- 
lars." 

In  the  early  ages  of  the  church  great  stress  was 
laid  on  I  Pet.  iii.  19:  *  He  (Christ)  went  and 
preached  unto  the  spirits  in  prison. "  That  this  doc- 
trine was  prevalent  as  late  as  Augustine's  day  is  evi- 
dent from  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  is  anathematized 
in  his  list  of  heresies — number  79.  And  even  as  late 
as  the  Ninth  Century  it  was  condemned  by  Pope  Bon- 
iface VI.  It  was  believed  that  our  Lord  not  only 
proclaimed  his  Gospel  to  all  the  dead  but  that  he  lib- 
erated them  all.  How  could  it  be  possible  for  a 
Christian  to  entertain  the  thought  that  all  the  wicked 
who  died  before  the  advent  of  our  Lord  were  released 
from  bondage,  and  that  any  who  died  after  his  ad- 
vent would  suffer  endless  woe?  Eusebius  says: 
"Christ,  caring  for  the  salvation  of  all  *  *  * 
opened  a  way  of  return  to  life  for  the  dead  bound  in 
the  chains  of  death."  Athanasius*  "The  devil 
*  *  *  cast  out  of  Hades,  sees  all  the  fettered  be- 
ings led  forth  by  the  courage  of  the  Savior.  "^  Origen 
on  I  Kings,  xxviii:32:  "  Jesus  descended  into  Hades, 
and  the  prophets  before  him,  and  they  proclaim  be- 
forehand the  coming  of  Christ. "  DiDYMus  observes  "In 
the  liberation  of  all  no  one  remains  a  captive ;  at  the 
time  of  the  Lord's  passion  he  alone  (Satan)  was  in- 
jured, who  lost   all  the  captives  he  was   keeping. " 

»  De  Passione  et  Cruce  Domini.    Migne,  XXVIII,  186-240. 


TWO  KINDRED  TOPICS.  63 

Cyril  of  Alexandria .  ' '  And  wandering  down  even 
to  Hades  he  has  emptied  the  dark,  secret,  invisible 
treasuries."  Gregory  of  Nazianzus:*  *'  Until  Christ 
loosed  by  his  blood  all  who  groaned  under  Tartarian 
chains."  Jerome  on  Jonah  ii:  6:  "  Our  Lord  was 
shut  up  in  aeonian  bars  in  order  that  he  might  set 
free  all  who  had  been  shut  up. " 

Such  passages  might  be  multiplied,  demonstrating 
that  the  early  church  regarded  the  conquest  by  Christ 
of  the  departed  as  universal.  He  set  free  from  bonds 
all  the  dead  in  Hades.  If  the  primitive  Christians 
believed  that  all  the  wicked  of  all  the  aeons  preceding 
the  death  of  Christ  were  released,  how  can  we  suppose 
them  to  have  regarded  the  wicked  subsequent  to  his 
death  as  destined  to  suffer  interminable  torments? 
Clement  of  Alexandria  is  explicit  in  declaring  that 
the  Gospel  was  preached  to  all,  both  Jews  and  Gen- 
tiles, in  Hades; — that  "the  sole  cause  of  the  Lord's 
descent  to  the  underworld  was  to  preach  the  gospel. " 
(Strom.  VL)  O  rig  en  says:  "Not  only  while  Jesus 
was  in  the  body  did  he  win  over  not  a  few  only, 
*  *  *  but  when  he  became  a  soul,  without  the 
covering  of  the  body,  he  dwelt  among  those  souls 
(in  Hades)  which  were  without  bodily  covering,  con- 
verting such  of  them  as  were  fit  for  it. " 

About  a  century  after  the  death  of  John  appeared 
the  apocryphal  Gospel  of  Nicodemus,  valuable  as  set- 
ting forth   current  eschatology.     It 
The  Gospel  of  describes  the  effect  of  Christ's  preach- 

Nicodemus.  ing  in  Hades:     "When  Jesus  arrived 

in  Hades,  the  gates  burst  open,  and 
taking  Adam  by  the  hand  Jesus  said,  '  Come  all  with 

♦  Carm.  XXXV,  v.  9. 


64     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

me,  as  many  as  have  died  through  the  tree  which  he 
touched,  for  behold  I  raise  you  all  up  through  the 
tree  of  the  cross. '  "  This  book  shows  conclusively 
that  the  Christians  of  that  date  did  not  regard  seonian 
punishment  as  interminable,  inasmuch  as  those  who 
had  been  sentenced  to  that  condition  were  released. 
"If  Christ  preached  to  dead  men  who  were  once  dis- 
obedient, then  Scripture  shows  us  that  the  moment 
of  death  does  not  necessarily  involve  a  final  and  hope- 
less torment  for  every  sinful  soul.  Of  all  the  blunt 
weapons  of  ignorant  controversy  employed  against 
those  to  whom  has  been  revealed  the  possibility  of  a 
larger  hope  than  is  left  to  mankind  by  Augustine  or 
by  Calvin,  the  bluntest  is  the  charge  that  such  a 
hope  renders  null  the  necessity  for  the  work  of  Christ. 

*  *  *  We  thus  rescue  the  work  of  redemption  from 
the  appearance  of  having  failed  to  achieve  its  end 
for  the  vast  majority  of  those  for  whom  Christ  died. 

*  *  *  In  these  passages,  as  has  been  truly  said,  'we 
may  see  an  expansive  paraphrase  and  exuberant 
variation  of  the  original  Pauline  theme  of  the  univer- 
salism  of  the  evangelic  embassage  of  Christ,  and  of 
his  sovereignty  over  the  world;'  and  especially  of  the 
passage  in  the  Philippians  (ii.  9-1 1)  where  all  they  that 
are  in  heaven  and  on  the  earth  and  under  the  earth, 
are  enumerated  as  classes  of  the  subjects  of  the  ex- 
alted Redeemer. "  ^  And  Alford  observes :  "The  in- 
ference every  intelligent  reader  will  draw  from  the 
fact  here  announced:  it  is  not  purgatory;  it  is  not 
universal  restitution;  but  it  is  one  which  throws 
blessed  light  on  one  of  the  darkest  enigmas  of  divine 

'Farrar's  "Early  Days  of  Christianity,"  ch.  vii. 


TWO  KINDRED  TOPICS.  65 

justice."  TiMOTHEUS  II.,  patriarch  of  the Nestorians, 
wrote  that  "by  the  prayers  of  the  saints  the  souls  of 
sinners  may  pass  from  Gehenna  to  Paradise, "  (Asse- 
man.  IV.  p.  344).  See  Prof.  Plumptre's  "Spirits  in 
Prison,"  p.  141;  Diet.  Christ.  Biog.  Art.  Eschatol- 
ogy,  etc.  Says  Uhlhorn  (Book  I,  ch.  iii) :  "For  de- 
ceased persons  their  relatives  brought  gifts  on  the 
anniversary  of  their  death,  a  beautiful  custom  which 
vividly  exhibited  the  connection  between  the  church 
above  and  the  church  below." 

"  One  fact  stands  out  very  clearly  from  the  pages  of 
patristic  literature,  viz. :  that  all  sects  and  divisions  of 
the  Christians  in  the  second  and  third  centuries  united 
in  the  belief  that  Christ  went  down  into  Hades,  or  the 
Underworld,  after  his  death  on  the  cross,  and  re- 
mained there  until  his  resurrection.  Of  course  it 
was  natural  that  the  question  should  come  up ,  What 
did  he  do  there?  As  he  came  down  from  earth  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to,  and  save,  the  living,  it  was  easy 
to  infer  that  he  went  down  into  Hades  to  preach  the 
same  glad  tidings  there,  and  show  the  way  of  salva- 
tion to  those  who  had  died  before  his  advent."^ 
Prayers  for  the  Dead. 

It  need  not  here  be  claimed  that  the  doctrine 
that  Christ  literally  preached  to  the  dead  in  Hades 
is  true,  or  that  such  is  the  teaching  of  I  Pet.  iii:  19 
but  it  is  perfectly  apparent  that  if  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians held  to  the  doctrine  they  could  not  have  be- 
lieved that  the  condition  of  the  soul  is  fixed  at  death. 
That  is  comparatively  a  modern  doctrine. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Catholic  doctrine 

^Universalist  Quarterly. 


66     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

of  purgatory  is  a  corruption  of  the  Scriptural  doctrine 
of  the  disciplinary  character  of  all  God's  punishments. 
Purgatory  was  never  heard  of  in  the  earlier  centuries.' 
It  is  first  fully  stated  by  Pope  Gregory  the  First, 
"its  inventor,"  at  the  close  of  the  Sixth  Century. 
**  For  some  light  faults  we  must  believe  that  there  is 
before  judgment  a  purgatorial  fire. "  This  theory  is 
a  perversion  of  the  idea  held  anciently,  that  all  God's 
punishments  are  purgative;  what  the  Catholic  re- 
gards as  true  of  the  errors  of  the  good  is  just  as  true 
of  the  sins  of  the  worst, — indeed,  of  all.  The  word 
rendered  punishment  in  Matt,  xxv;  46,  {kolasin)  im- 
plies all  this. 

That  the  condition  of  the  dead  was  not  regarded 
as  imalterably  fixed  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
prayers  for  the  dead  were  customary 
Condition  of  the  anciently,  and  that,  too,  before  the 
Dead  not  Final.  doctrine  of  purgatory  was  formulated. 
The  living  believed — and  so  should 
we  believe — that  the  dead  have  migrated  to  another 
country,  where  the  good  offices  of  survivors  on  earth 
avail.  Perpetua  begged  for  the  help  of  her  brother, 
child  of  a  Pagan  father,  who  had  died  unbaptized. 
In  Tertullian  the  widow  prays  for  the  soul  of  her 
departed  husband.  Repentance  by  the  dead  is  con- 
ceded by  Clement,  and  the  prayers  of  the  good  on 
earth  help  them. 

The  dogma  of  the  purificatory  character  of  future 
punishment  did  not  degenerate  into  the  doctrine  of 
punishment  for  believers  only,  until  the  Fourth  Cen- 
tury; nor  did  that  error  crystallize  into  the  Catholic 

'Archs.  Usher  and    Wake,  quoted  by  Farrar,  "Mercy  and  Judgment," 


TWO  KINDRED  TOPICS.  (>n 

purgatory  until  later.  Hagenbach  says:  "Com- 
paring Gregory's  doctrine  with  the  earlier,  and  more 
spiritual  notions  concerning  the  efficacy  of  the  purify- 
ing fire  of  the  intermediate  state,  we  may  adopt  the 
statement  of  Schmidt  that  the  belief  in  a  lasting  de- 
sire of  perfection,  which  death  itself  cannot  quench, 
degenerated  into  a  belief  in  purgatory." 

Plumptre  ("Spirits  in  Prison,"  London,  p.  25)  has 
a  valuable  statement:  "In  every  form;  from  the 
solemn  liturgies  which  embodied  the  belief  of  her 
profoundest  thinkers  and  truest  worshipers,  to  the 
simple  words  of  hope  and  love  which  were  traced 
over  the  graves  of  the  poor,  her  voice  (the  church  of 
the  first  ages)  went  up  without  a  doubt  or  misgiving, 
in  prayers  for  the  souls  of  the  departed;"  showing 
that  they  could  not  have  regarded  their  condition  as 
unalterably  fixed  at  death.  Prof.  Plumptre  quotes 
from  Lee's  "Christian  Doctrine  of  Prayer  for  the  De- 
parted," to  show  the  early  Christians'  belief  that  inter- 
cessions for  the  dead  would  be  of  avail  to  them. 
Even  Augustine  accepted  the  doctrine.  He  prayed 
after  his  mother's  death,  that  her  sins  might  be  for- 
given, and  that  his  father  might  also  receive  pardon. 
( "Confessions,"  ix,  13.)^ 

"  The  Platonic  doctrine  of  a  separate  state  where 
the  spirits  of  the  departed  are  purified,  and  on  which 
the  later  doctrine  of  purgatory  was  founded,  was  ap- 
proved by  all  the  expositors  of  Christianity  who  were 
of  the  Alexandrian  school,  as  was  the  custom  of  per- 


8That  these  ideas   were  general  in  the  primitive  church,  see   Nitzsch, 

"Christian  Doctrine,"  Sec.  Ill;  Dorner,  "System  of  Christian  Doctrine," 

Vol.    IV,  (Eschatology).    Also  Vaughan's  "Causes  of  the  Corruption  of 
Christianity,"  p.  319. 


68    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

forming  religious  services  at  the  tombs  of  the  dead. " 
Uhlhorn  gives  similar  testimony:  "For  deceased 
persons  their  relatives  brought  gifts  on  the  anniver- 
sary of  their  death,  a  beautiful  custom,  which  vividly 
exhibited  the  connection  between  the  church  above 
and  the  church  below. "  Origen's  tenet  of  Catharsis 
or  Purification  was  absorbed  by  the  growing  belief 
in  purgatory.  ^ 

Important  Thoughts. 
Let  the  reader  reflect  (i)  that  the  Primitive 
Christians  so  distrusted  the  effect  of  the  truth  on  the 
popular  mind  that  they  withheld  it,  and  only  cher- 
ished it  esoterically,  and  held  up  terrors  for  effect,  in 
which  they  had  no  faith;  (2)  that  they  prayed  for 
the  wicked  dead  that  they  might  be  released  from 
suffering;  (3)  that  they  universally  held  that  Christ 
preached  the  Gospel  to  sinners  in  Hades;  (4)  that  the 
earliest  creeds  are  entirely  silent  as  to  the  idea  that 
the  wicked  dead  were  in  irretrievable  and  endless 
torment;  (5)  that  the  terms  used  by  some  who  are 
accused  of  teaching  endless  torment  were  precisely 
those  employed  by  those  acknowledged  to  have  been 
Universalists ;  (6)  that  the  first  Christians  were  the 
happiest  of  people  and  infused  a  wonderful  cheerful- 
ness into  a  world  of  sorrow  and  gloom;  (7)  that  there 
is  not  a  shade  of  darkness  nor  a  note  of  despair  in 
any  one  of  the  thousands  of  epitaphs  in  the  Cata- 
combs; (8)  that  the  doctrine  of  universal  redemption 
was  first  made  prominent  by  those  to  whom  Greek 
was  their  native  tongue,  and  that  they  declared  that 
they  derived  it  from  the  Greek  Scriptures,  while  end- 

""Neoplatonism,"  by  C.  Bigg,  p.  334. 


TWO  KINDRED  TOPICS.  69 

less  punishment  was  first  taught  by  Africans  and 
Latins,  who  derived  it  from  a  foreign  tongue  of  which 
the  great  teacher  of  it  confessed  he  was  ignorant. 
(See  "Augustine  "  later  on.)  Let  the  reader  give  to 
these  considerations  their  full  and  proper  weight,  and 
it  will  be  impossible  to  believe  that  the  fathers  re- 
garded the  impenitent  as  consigned  at  death  to 
hopeless  and  endless  woe. 

Note.— After  giving  the  emphatic  language  of  Clement  and  Origen  and 
other  ancient  Christians  declarative  of  universal  holiness,  Dr.  Bigg,  in  his 
valuable  book,  "The  Christian  Platonists  of  Alexandria,"  frequently  quoted 
in  these  pages,  remarks  (pp.  292-3):  "Neither  Clement  nor  Origen  is,  prop- 
erly speaking,  a  Universalist.  Nor  is  Universalism  the  logical  result  of 
their  principles."  The  reasons  he  gives  are  two:  (l)  They  believed  in  the 
freedom  of  the  will;  and  (2)  they  did  not  deny  the  eternity  of  punishment, 
because  the  soul  that  has  sinned  beyond  a  certain  point  can  never  become 
what  it  might  haye  been ! 

To  which  it  is  only  necessary  to  say  (1)  that  Universalists  generally  ac- 
cept the  freedom  of  the  will,  and  (2)  no  soul  that  has  sinned,  as  all  have 
sinned,  can  ever  become  what  it  might  have  been,  so  that  Dr.  Bigg's  prem- 
ises would  necessitate  Universalism,  but  universal  condemnation! 

And,  as  if  to  contradict  his  own  words  Dr.  Bigg  adds  in  the  very  next 
paragraph:  "The  hope  of  a  general  restitution  of  all  souls  through  suffering 
to  purity  and  blessedness,  lingered  on  in  the  East  for  some  time;"  and  the 
last  words  in  his  book  are  these:  "It  is  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul, — Then 
Cometh  the  end,  when  he  shall  have  delivered  up  the  Kingdom  to  God,  even 
the  Father.  Then  shall  the  Son  also  himself  be  subject  unto  him  that  put 
all  things  under  him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all."  And  these  are  the  last 
words  of  his  last  note:  "At  the  end  all  will  be  one  because  the  Father's 
will  is  all  in  all  and  all  in  each.  Each  will  fill  the  place  which  the  mystery 
of  the  economy  assigns  to  him." 

It  would  be  interesting  to  learn  what  sort  of  a  monstrosity  Dr.  Bigg  has 
constructed,  and  labeled  with  the  word  which  he  declares  could  not  be  ap- 
plied to  Clement  and  Origen. 


VI. 

THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS. 

As  we  read  the  writings  of  the  immediate  suc- 
cessors  of   the    apostles,  we  discover  that  matters 

of  eschatology  do  not  occupy  their 
The  First  Chris-  thought.  They  dwell  on  the  advent 
tians  not  Explicit  of  our  Lord,  and  dilate  on  its  blessings 
in  Eschatological  to  the  world;  they  give  the  proofs 
Matters.  of     his     divinity,     and     appeal     to 

men  to  accept  his  religion.  Most 
of  the  surviving  documents  of  the  First  Century 
are  hortatory.  It  was  an  apologetic,  not  a  polemic 
age.  A  very  partisan  author,  anxious  to  show  that 
the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  was  bequeathed  to 
their  immediate  successors  by  the  apostles,  concedes 
this.  He  says  that  the  first  Christians  "touched  but 
lightly  and  incidentally  on  points  of  doctrine,"  but 
gave  ' '  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  in  the  very  words 
of  Scripture,  giving  us  often  no  certain  clew  to  their 
interpretations  of  the  language.^"  The  first  Chris- 
tians were  converted  Jews,  Greeks,  Egyptians,  Ro- 
mans, differing  in  their  theologies,  and  only  agreeing 
in  accepting  Christ  and  Christianity;  their  ideas  of  our 
Lord's  teaching  concerning  human  destiny  and  on 
other  subjects  were  tinctured  by  their  antecedent  pre- 

iDr.  Alvah  Hovey,  State  of  the  Impenitent  Dead,  pp.  131,  2, 
70 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS.      ^\ 

dilections.  Their  doctrines  on  many  points  were  col- 
ored by  Jewish  and  Pagan  errors,  until  their  minds 
were  clarified,  when  the  more  systematic  teachers 
came, — Clement,  Origen  and  others,  who  eliminated 
the  errors  Christian  converts  had  brought  with  them 
from  former  associations,  and  presented  Christianity 
as  Christ  taught  it.  The  measures  of  meal  were 
more  or  less  impure  until  the  leaven  of  genuine 
Christianity  transformed  them.  But  it  is  conceded 
that  there  is  little  left  of  the  apostolic  age,  out  of  the 
New  Testament,  to  tell  us  what  their  ideas  of  human 
destiny  were. 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  the  Pharisaic  notion 
of  a  partial  resurrection  and  the  annihilation  of  the 
wicked  was  held  by  some,  and  the  heathen  ideas  of 
endless  punishment  by  others.  We  know  that  even 
while  the  apostles  lived  some  of  the  early  Christians 
had  accepted  new,  or  retained  ancient  errors,  for 
which  they  were  reprimanded  by  the  apostles. 
"  False  teachers  "  and  "philosophy  and  vain  deceit  " 
were  alleged  of  them,  and  it  is  the  testimony  of  schol- 
ars that  errors  abounded  among  them,  errors  that 
Christianity  did  not  at  first  exorcise.  But  the  ques- 
tions concerning  human  destiny  were  not  at  all  raised 
at  first.  True  views  and  false  ones  undoubtedly 
prevailed,  brought  into  the  new  communion  from 
former  associations.  And  it  is  conceded  that  while 
very  little  literature  on  the  subject  remains,  there  is 
enough  to  show  that  they  differed,  at  first,  and  until 
wiser  teachers  systematized  our  religion,  and  sifted 
out  the  wheat  from  the  chaff. 

The  first  of  the  apostolic  fathers  was  Clement 
of  Rome,  who  was  bishop  A,  D.  85.     Eusebius  and 


72    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Origen  thought  he  was  Paul's  fellow  laborer.  His 
famous  (first)  epistle  of  fifty-nine  chapters  is  about  the 
length  of  Mark's  Gospel.  He  appeals 
Views  of  Clement  to  the  destruction  of  the  cities  of  the 
of  Rome.  plains  to  illustrate  the  divine  punish- 

ments, but  gives  no  hint  of  the  idea  of 
endless  woe,  though  he  devotes  three  chapters  to  the 
resurrection.  He  has  been  thought  to  have  held  to  a 
partial  resurrection,  for  he  asks :  "  Do  we  then  deem 
it  any  great  and  wonderful  thing  for  the  maker  of  all 
things  to  raise  up  again  those  who  have  proudly 
served  him  in  the  assurance  of  a  good  faith?"  But 
this  does  not  prove  he  held  to  the  annihilation  of  the 
wicked,  for  Theophilus  and  Origen  use  similar 
language.  He  says:  "  Let  us  reflect  how  free  from 
wrath  he  is  towards  all  his  creatures. "  God  **  does 
good  to  all,  but  most  abundantly  to  us  who  have  fled 
for  refuge  to  his  compassions,"  etc.  God  is  **  the  all- 
merciful  and  beneficent  Father. "  Neander  affirms 
that  he  had  the  Pauline  spirit,"  with  love  as  the  mo- 
tive, and  A.  St.  J.  Chambre,  D.  D.,^  thinks  "he 
probably  believed  in  the  salvation  of  all  men,"  and 
Allin^  refers  to  Rufinus  and  says,  "from  which  we 
may,  I  think,  infer,  that  Clement,  with  other  fathers, 
was  a  believer  in  the  larger  hope."  It  cannot  be  said 
that  he  has  left  anything  positive  in  relation  to  the 
subject,  though  it  is  probable  that  Chambre  and 
Allin  have  correctly  characterized  him.  He  wrote 
a  Greek  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  which  was  lost  for 
centuries,  but  was  often  quoted  by  subseqent  writers, 
and  whose  contents  were  therefore  only  known  in 

»Anc.  Hist.  Univ.,  Note. 
'Univer.  Asserted,  p.  105. 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS.       73 

fragments.  It  was  probably  written  before  John's 
Gospel.  It  was  at  length  found  complete,  bound  with 
the  Alexandrian  codex.  It  was  read  in  church  be- 
fore and  at  the  time  of  Eusebius,  and  even  as  late 
as  the  Fifth  Century. 

PoLYCARP  was  bishop  of  the  church  in  Smyrna, 
A.  D.  108-117.     He  is  thought  to  have  been  John's 

disciple.     Iren^us  tells    us  that  he 
Polycarp  a  and  Ignatius  were  friends  of  Peter 

Destructionist.         and  John,  and  related  what  they  had 

told  them.  His  only  surviving  epistle 
contains  this  passage :  To  Christ  ' '  all  things  are 
made  subject,  both  that  are  in  heaven  and  that  are 
on  earth;  whom  every  living  creature  shall  worship; 
who  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  dead;  whose 
blood  God  shall  require  of  them  that  believe  not  in 
him."  He  also  says  in  the  same  chapter:  "  He  who 
raised  up  Christ  from  the  dead,  will  also  raise  us  up 
if  we  do  his  will,"  implying  that  the  resurrection  de- 
pended, as  he  thought,  on  conduct  in  this  life.  It 
seems  probable  that  he  was  one  of  those  who  held  to 
the  Pharisaic  doctrine  of  a  partial  resurrection.  And 
yet  this  is  only  the  most  probable  conjecture.  There 
is  nothing  decisive  in  his  language.  When  the  pro- 
consul Statius  Quadratus  wrote  to  Polycarp, 
threatening  him  with  burning,  the  saint  replied 
' '  Thou  threatenest  me  with  a  fire  that  burns  for  an 
hour,  and  is  presently  extinct,  but  art  ignorant,  alas ! 
of  the  fire  of  aionian  condemnation,  and  the  judg- 
ment to  come,  reserved  for  the  wicked  in  the  other 
world."  After  Polycarp  there  was  no  literature, 
that  has  descended  to  us,  for  several  years,  except  a 
few  quotations  in  later  writings,  which,  however, 


74     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES, 
contain  nothing  bearing-  on  our  theme,  from  Papias, 

QUADRATUS,   AgRIPPA,   CaSTOR,    CtC. 

"  The  Martyrdom  of  Polycarp"  purports  to  be  a 
letter  from   the  church  of  Smyrna  reciting  the  par- 
ticulars of  his  death.     But  though  it 
is  the  earliest  of  the  Martyria,  it  is 
The  Martyria.  supposed  to  have  a  much  later  date 

than  it  alleges,  and  much  has  been 
interpolated  by  its  transcribers.  Eusebius  omits 
much  of  it.  It  speaks  of  the  fire  that  is  '•'■  aionion 
punishment,"  and  it  is  probable  that  the  writer  gave 
these  terms  the  same  sense  that  is  given  them  by  the 
Scriptures,  Origen,  Gregory  and  other  Universalist 
writings  and  authors. 

Tatian  states  the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment 
very  strongly.  He  was  a  philosophical  Platonist 
more  than  a  Christian.  He  was  a  heathen  convert 
and  repeats  the  heathen  doctrines  in  language  un- 
known to  the  New  Testament  though  common 
enough  in  heathen  works.  He  calls  punishment 
"  death  through  punishment  in  immortality,"*  terms 
usedby  JosEPHUs  and  the  Pagans,  but  never  found  m 
the  New  Testament.  His  "  Diatessaron, "  a  collection 
of  the  Gospels,  is  of  real  value  in  determining  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Gospels  in  the  Second  Century. 

The  Epistle  of  Barnabas  was  written  by  an  Alex- 
andrian Gnostic,  probably  about  A.  D.  70  to  120,  not, 
as  has  been  claimed,  by  Paul's  com- 
Barnabas's  "Way  of  panion,  and   yet    some   of   the    best 
Death."  authorities  think  the  author  of  the 

Epistle  was  the  friend  of  Paul. 
Though  often  quoted  by  the  ancients,  the  first  four 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS.     75 

and  a  half  chapters  of  the  Epistle  were  only  known 
in  a  Latin  version  until  the  entire  Greek  was  discov- 
ered and  published  in  1863.  It  is  the  only  Christian 
composition  written  while  the  New  Testament  was 
being  written,  except  the  *' Wisdom  of  Solomon." 
It  is  of  small  intrinsic  value,  and  sheds  but  little 
light  on  eschatology.  The  first  perfect  manuscript 
was  found  with  the  Sinaitic  manuscript  of  Tischen- 
DORF,  a  translation  of  which  is  given  by  Samuel 
Sharpe.  (Williams  &  Norgate,  London,  1880.  )  It 
was  the  first  document  after  the  New  Testament  to 
apply  aionios  to  punishment;  but  there  is  nothing  in 
the  connection  to  show  that  it  was  used  in  any  other 
than  its  Scriptural  sense,  indefinite  duration.  It  is 
quoted  by  Origen  in  Cont.  Cels.,  and  by  Clement  of 
Alexandria.  It  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  standing 
alone  among  writings  contemporary  with  the  New 
Testament.  The  phrase,  eis  ton  aiona,  "to  the  age," 
mistranslated  in  the  New  Testament  "forever" 
(though  correctly  rendered  in  the  margin  of  the 
Revision),  is  employed  by  Barnabas  and  applied  to 
the  rewards  of  goodness  and  the  evil  consequences  of 
ill  doing.  He  says,  "  The  way  of  the  Black  one  is 
an  age-lasting  way  of  death  and  punishment,"  but 
the  description  accompanying  shows  that  the  Way 
and  its  results  are  confined  to  this  life,  for  he  pre- 
cedes it  by  disclaiming  all  questions  of  eschatology. 
He  says:  "  If  I  should  write  to  you  about  things  that 
are  future  you  would  not  understand."  And  when 
he  speaks  of  God  he  says:  "  He  is  Lord  from  ages 
and  to  ages,  but  he  (Satan)  is  prince  of  the  present 
time  of  wickedness. "  Long  duration  but  not  strict 
eternity  seems  to  have  been  in  his  mind  when  he  re- 


76   UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

f erred  to  the  consequences  of  wickedness.  This  is 
confirmed  by  the  following  language  ' '  He  that 
chooseth  those  (evil)  things  will  be  destroyed  to- 
gether with  his  works.  For  the  sake  of  this  there 
will  be  a  resurrection,  for  the  sake  of  this  a  repay- 
ment. The  day  is  at  hand  in  which  all  things  will 
perish  together  with  the  evil  one.  The  Lord  is  at 
hand  and  his  reward. "  Barnabas  probably  held  the 
Scriptural  view  of  punishment,  long-lasting  but 
limited,  though  he  employs  tinioria  (torment)  instead 
of  kolasis  (correction)  for  punishment. 

In  the  middle  of  the  Second  Century,  say  A.  D. 
141  to  156,  a  book  entitled  the  "Shepherd,"  or 
'*  Pastor  of  Hermas, "  was  read  in  the 
The  Shepherd  or  churches,  and  was  regarded  as  al- 
Pastor  of  Hermas.  most  equal  to  the  Scriptures.  The 
author  was  commissioned  to  write  it 
by  Clemens  Romanus.  Iren^us,  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, Origen,  Eusebius  and  Athanasius  quote 
from  it,  and  rank  it  among  the  sacred  writings. 
Clement  says  it  is  "divinely  expressed,"  and  Origen 
calls  it  "divinely  inspired."  Iren^eus  designates 
the  book  as  "  The  Scripture."  According  to  Rothe, 
Hefele,  and  the  editors  of  Bib.  Max.  Patrum,  Her- 
mas teaches  the  possibility  of  repentance  after  death, 
but  seems  to  imply  the  annihilation  of  the  wicked. 
Farrar  says  that  the  parable  of  the  tower  "certainly 
taught  a  possible  amelioration  after  death :  for  a  pos- 
sibility of  repentance  and  so  of  being  built  into  the 
tower  is  granted  to  some  of  the  rejected  stones." 
The  "Pastor"  does  not  avow  Universalisni,  but  he 
is  much  further  from  the  eschatology  of  the  church 
for  the  last  fifteen   centuries,   than  from  universal 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS,      m 

restoration.  Only  fragments  of  this  work  were  pre- 
served for  a  long  time,  and  they  were  in  a  Latin 
translation,  until  1859,  when  one-fourth  of  the  orig- 
inal Greek  was  discovered.  This,  with  the  frag- 
ments previously  possessed,  and  the  Ethiopia  ver- 
sion, give  us  the  full  text  of  this  ancient  document. 
The  book  is  a  sort  of  Ante-Nicene  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress— an  incoherent  imitation  of  Revelation.^  The 
theology  of  the  "  Shepherd  "  can  be  gauged  from  his 
language:  "  Put  on,  therefore,  gladness,  that  hath 
always  favor  before  God,  and  is  acceptable  unto  him, 
and  delight  thyself  in  it ;  for  every  man  that  is  glad 
doeth  the  things  that  are  good,  but  thinketh  good 
thoughts,  despising  grief."  How  different  this  sen- 
timent from  that  which  prevailed  later,  when  saints 
mortified  body  and  soul,  and  made  religion  the 
apotheosis  of  melancholy  and  despair. 

Of  some  fifteen  epistles  ascribed  to  Ignatius,  it 
has  been  settled  by  modern  scholarship  that  seven 
are  genuine.  There  are  passages  in  these  that  seem 
to  indicate  that  he  believed  in  the  annihilation  of  the 
wicked.  He  was  probably  a  convert  from  heathen- 
ism who  had  not  gotten  rid  of  his  former  opinions. 
He  says:  "It  would  have  been  better  for  them  to 
love  that  they  might  rise."  If  he  believed  in  a  par- 
tial resurrection  he  could  not  have  used  words  that 
denote  endless  consequences  to  sin  any  more  than 
did  Origen,  for  if  annihilation  followed  those  conse- 
quences, they  must  be  limited.  When  Ignatius 
and  Barnabas  speak  of  "eternal"  punishment  or 
death,  we  might  perhaps  suppose  that  they  regarded 

^Bunsen,  Hipp,  and  His  Age,  Vol.  I,  p.  182. 


78     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

the  punishment  of  sin  as  endless,  did  we  not  find 
that  Origen  and  other  Universalists  used  the  same 
terms,  and  did  we  not  know  that  the  Scriptures  do 
the  same.  To  find  aionion  attached  to  punishment 
proves  nothing  as  to  its  duration.  In  his  Epist.  ad 
Trail. ,  he  says  that  Christ  descended  into  Hades  and 
cleft  the  aionion  barrier. 

It  seems  on  the  whole  probable  that  while  Igna- 
tius did  not  dogmatize  on  human  destiny,  he  re- 
garded the  resurrection  as  conditional. 
Ignatius  Probably  But  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  student 
a  Destructionist.  should  remember  that  the  pernicious 
doctrine  of  "reserve"  or  "oecon- 
omy  "  continually  controlled  the  minds  of  the  early 
Christian  teachers,  so  that  they  not  only  withheld 
their  real  views  of  the  future,  lest  ignorant  people 
should  take  advantage  of  God's  goodness,  but  threat- 
ened consequences  of  sin  to  sinners,  in  order  to  sup- 
ply the  inducements  that  they  thought  the  masses  of 
people  required  to  deter  them  from  sin.  Dr.  Ballou 
thinks  that  this  father  held  that  the  wicked  *'will 
not  be  raised  from  the  dead,  but  exist  hereafter  as 
incorporeal  spirits. "     He  was  martyred  A.  D.  107. 

Justin  Martyr,  A.  D.  89-166,  is  the  first  scholar 
produced  by  the  Church,  and  the  first  conspicuous 
father    the    authenticity     of    whose 
Justin  Martyr's       writings  is  not  disputed.     His  sur- 
Views.  viving  works  are  his  two  Apologies, 

and  his  Dialogue  with  Trypho.  It 
IS  difficult  to  ascertain  his  exact  views.  Cave  says: 
"Justin  Martyr  maintains  that  the  souls  of  good 
men  are  not  received  into  heaven  until  the  resurrec- 
tion    *     *    *    that  the  souls  of  the  wicked  are  thrust 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS.      79 

into  a  worse  condition,  where  they  expect  the  judg- 
ment of  the  great  day."  Justin  himself  says  that 
*'the  punishment  is  age-long  chastisement  {aionion 
kolasin)  and  not  for  a  thousand  years  as  Plato  says," 
(in  Phoedra) .  '  'It  is  unlimited ;  men  are  chastised  for 
an  unlimited  period,  and  the  kingdom  is  aioyiion  and 
the  chastening  fire  {kolasis puros)  aionion,  too.  *  *  * 
*'  God  delays  the  destruction  of  the  world,  which  will 
cause  wicked  angels  and  demons  and  men  to  cease 
to  exist,  in  order  to  their  repentance.  *  *  *  Some 
which  appeared  worthy  of  God  never  die,  others  are 
punished  as  long  as  God  wills  them  to  exist  and  be 
punished.  *  *  *  Souls  both  die  and  are  punished." 
He  calls  the  fire  of  punishment  unquenchable  {asdes- 
ion).  He  sometimes  seems  to  have  taught  a  pseudo- 
Universalism,  that  is,  the  salvation  of  all  who  should 
be  permitted  to  be  immortal ;  at  other  times  endless 
punishment.  Again  he  favors  universal  salvation. 
He  not  only  condemned  those  who  forbade  the  read- 
ing of  the  Sibylline  Oracles,  but  commended  the 
book.  His  language  is,  "We  not  only  read  them 
without  fear,  but  offer  them  for  inspection,  knowing 
that  they  will  appear  well-pleasing  to  all."  As  the 
Oracles  distinctly  advocate  universal  salvation,  it  is 
not  easy  to  believe  that  Justin  discarded  their  teach- 
ings. And  yet  he  says:  "  If  the  death  of  wicked 
men  had  ended  in  insensibility, "  it  would  have  been 
a  "god-send"  to  them.  Instead,  he  says,  death  is 
followed  by  aionion  punishment.  If  he  used  the 
word  as  Origen  did,  the  two  statements  are  re- 
concilable with  each  other.  Justin  taught  a 
"general  and  everlasting  resurrection  and  judg- 
ment.    Body   and   soul  are  to  be   raised  and  the 


8o    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

wicked  with  the  devil  and  his  angels,  and  de- 
mons, sent  to  Gehenna.^  *  *  *  Christ  has  de- 
clared that  Satan  and  his  host,  together  with  those 
men  who  follow  him,  shall  be  sent  into  fire,  and  pun- 
ished for  an  endless  period.^ "  But  it  may  be  that  he 
speaks  rhetorically,  and  not  literally.  It  is  the  gen- 
eral opinion,  however,  that  he  regarded  punishment 
as  limited,  to  be  followed  by  annihilation.  He  him- 
self says:  "The  soul,  therefore,  partakes  of  life,  be- 
cause God  wills  it  should  live;  and,  accordingly,  it 
will  not  partake  of  life  whenever  God  shall  will  that 
it  should  not  live. "  And  yet  he  says  that  bodies  are 
consumed  in  the  fire,  and  at  the  same  time  remain 
immortal. 

Justin  was  a  heathen  philosopher  before  his  con- 
version, and  his  Christianity  is  of  a  mongrel  type. 
He  wore  a  pagan  philosopher's  robe,  or  pallium,  after 
his  conversion,  calls  himself  a  Platonist,  and  always 
seems  half  a  heathen.  His  effort  appears  to  be  to 
fuse  Christianity  and  Paganism,  and  it  is  not  easy  to 
harmonize  his  statements.  His  Pagan  idiosynocra- 
sies  colored  his  Christianity.  But,  as  Farrar  says, 
the  theology  of  the  first  one  or  two  centuries  had  not 
been  crystallized,  the  ' '  language  was  fluid  and  un- 
technical,  and  great  stress  should  not  be  laid  on  the 
expressions  of  the  earliest  fathers.  He  nowhere  calls 
punishment  endless,  but  aionion;  and  yet  it  can  not 
be  proved  that  he  was  at  all  aware  of  the  true  philo- 
sophic meaning  of  aionios  as  a  word  expressive  of 


6Apol.  1,  8. 

^But  Gregory  Nyssen   thi  Universalist  par  excellence,  says  that  Gehenna 
is  a  purifying  agency.    So  does  Origen. 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS.     8i 

quality,  and  exclusive  of — or  rather  the  absolute  an- 
tithesis to— time.  He  says  that  demons  and  wicked 
men  will  be  punished  for  a  boundless  age  {apcranto 
aiona),  but  in  some  passages  he  seems  to  be  at  least 
uncertain  whether  God  may  not  will  that  evil  souls 
should  cease  to  exist.  "^  When  Justin  says  that  trans- 
gressors are  to  remain  deathless  {athanata)  while  de- 
voured by  the  worm  and  fire,  may  he  not  mean  that 
they  cannot  die  while  thus  exposed?  So,  too,  when 
he  uses  the  word  aionios,  and  says  the  sinner  must 
undergo  punishment  during  that  period,  why  not  read 
literally  "for  ages,  and  not  as  Plato  said,  for  a 
thousand  years  only? " 

When,  therefore,  these  terms  are  found  unex- 
plained, as  in  Justin  Martyr,  they  should  be  read  in 
the  bright  light  cast  upon  them  by  the  interpretations 
of  Clement  and  O  rig  en,  who  employ  them  as  forcibly 
as  does  Justin,  but  who  explain  them — "eternal 
fire  "  and  "  everlasting  punishment" — as  in  perfect 
harmony  with  the  great  fact  of  universal  restoration. 
Doctor  Farrar  regards  Justin  Martyr  as  holding 
"  views  more  or  less  analogous  to  Universalism.^ " 

We  cannot  do  better  here  than  to  quote  H.  Ballou, 
2d  D.  D.: 

"The  question  turns  on  the  construction  of  a  sin- 
gle passage.  Justin  had  argued  that  souls  are  not, 
in  their  own  nature,  immortal,  since  they  were  cre- 
ated, or  begotten;  and  whatever  thus  begins  to  exist, 
may  come  to  an  end.  '  But,  still,  I  do  not  say  that 
souls  wholly  die ;  for  that  would  truly  be  good  f or- 


8Lives  of  the  Fathers,  p.  112. 
^Eternal  Hope,  p.  84. 


82    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

tune  to  the  bad.  What  then?  The  souls  of  the  pious 
dwell  in  a  certain  better  place;  but  those  of  the  un- 
just and  wicked,  in  a  worse  place,  expecting  the  time 
of  judgment.  Thus,  those  who  are  judged  of  God  to 
be  worthy,  die  no  more ;  but  the  others  are  punished 
as  long  as  God  shall  will  that  they  should  exist  and 
be  punished.  *  *  *  Yov,  whatever  is,  or  ever 
shall  be,  subsequent  to  God,  has  a  corruptible  nature, 
and  is  such  as  may  be  abolished  and  cease  to  exist, 
God  alone  is  unbegotten  and  incorruptible,  and, 
therefore,  he  is  God  ;  but  everything  else,  subse- 
quent to  him,  is  begotten  and  corruptible.  For  this 
reason,  souls  both  die  and  are  punished. "  ^'^ 

The  Epistle  to  Diognetus. — This  letter  was  long 
ascribed  to  Justin  Martyr,  but  it  is  now  generally 
regarded  as  anonymous.  It  was  writ- 
Punishment  ten  not  far  from  A.  D.  loo,  perhaps 
Not  Endless.  by  Marcion,  possibly  by  Justin 
Martyr.  It  is  a  beautiful  composi- 
tion, full  of  the  most  apostolic  spirit.  It  has  very 
little  belonging  to  our  theme,  except  that  at  the  close 
of  Chapter  X  it  speaks  of  *'  those  who  shall  be  con- 
demned to  the  awn  ion  fire  which  shall  chastise  those 
who  are  committed  to  it  even  unto  an  end, "  '^{jnecJiri 
telous).  Even  if  aionion  usually  meant  endless,  it 
is  limited  here  by  the  word  "unto"  which  has  the 
force  of  until,  as  does  aidios  in  Jude  6, — "  aidios 
chains  under  darkness,  unto  (or  until)  the  judgment 
of  the  great  day."  Such  a  limited  chastisement,  it 
would  seem,  could  only  be  believed  in  by  one  who 


loUnlver.  Quar.,  July.  1846.  pp.  299,  800. 
"Migne,  II.  p.  1184. 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS.     83 

regarded  God  as  Diognetus's  correspondent  did,  as 
one  who  '  *  still  is,  was  always,  and  ever  will  be  kind 
and  good,  and  free  from  wrath. " 

This  brief  passage  shows  us  that  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Second  Century  Christians  dwelt  upon  the 
severity  of  the  penalties  of  sin,  but  supplemented 
them  by  restoration  wherever  they  had  occasion  to 
refer  to  the  ultimate  outcome.  A  few  years  later  (as 
will  appear  further  on)  when  Christianity  was  system- 
atized by  Clement  and  Origen,  this  was  fully 
shown,  and  explains  the  obscurities,  and  sometimes 
the  apparent  incongruities  of  earlier  writers.  The 
lovely  spirit  and  sublime  ethics  of  this  epistle  fore- 
shadow the  Christian  theology  so  soon  to  be  fully  devel- 
oped by  Clement  and  Origen.  Bunsen  thinks(  Hipp, 
and  His  Age,  I,  pp.  170,  171)  the  letter  "indisputa- 
bly, after  Scripture,  the  finest  monument  we  know 
of  sound  Christian  feeling,  noble  courage,  and  manly 
eloquence. " 

Iren^us(A.  D.  120,  died  202)  was  a  friend  of  Igna- 
tius, and  says  that  in  his  youth  he  saw  Polycarp,  . 
who  was  contemporary  with  John.  He  had  known 
several  who  had  personally  listened  to  the  apostles. 
His  principal  work,  "Against  Heresies,"  was  written 
A.  D. ,  182  to  188.  No  complete  copy  of  it  exists  in 
the  original  Greek:  only  a  Latin  translation  is  extant, 
though  a  part  of  the  first  book  is  found  in  Greek  in 
the  copious  quotations  from  it  in  the  writings  of  Hip- 
poLYTus  and  Epiphanius.  Its  authority  is  weakened 
by  the  wretched  Latin  in  which  most  of  it  stands. 
One  fact,  however,  is  incontrovertible:  he  did  not 
regard  Universalism  as  among  the  heresies  of  his 
times,  for  he  nowhere  condemns  it,  though  the  doc- 


84      UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

trine  is  contained  in  the  "  Sibylline  Oracles,"  then  in 
general  use,  and  though  he  mentions  the  doctrine 
without  disapproval  in  his  description  of  the  theology 
of  the  Carpocratians. 

Iren^us  has  been  quoted  as  teaching  that  the 
Apostles'  creed  was  meant  to  inculcate  endless  pun- 
ishment, because  in  a  paraphrase  of 
Interesting  ^■^q^^  document  he  says  that  the  Judge, 

Exposition  of  ^^  ^^^g  ^^^j  assize,  will  cast  the  wicked 

into  "eternal"  fire.  But  the  terms 
he  uses  are  "  igncni  cBtenmni"  {aionion pur.)  As  just 
stated,  though  he  reprehends  the  Carpocratians  for 
teaching  the  transmigration  of  souls,  he  declares  with- 
out protest  that  they  explain  the  text  "imtil  thou  pay 
the  uttermost  farthing, "  as  inculcating  the  idea  that 
"  all  souls  are  saved."  Iren^us  says:  "  God  drove 
Adam  out  of  Paradise,  and  removed  him  far  from  the 
tree  of  life,  in  compassion  for  him,  that  he  might  not 
remain  a  transgressor  always,  and  that  the  sin  in 
which  he  was  involved  might  not  be  immortal,  nor 
be  without  end  and  incurable.  He  prevented  further 
transgression  by  the  interposition  of  death,  and  by 
causing  sin  to  cease  by  the  dissolution  of  the  flesh 
*  *  *  that  man  ceasing  to  live  to  sin,  and  dying 
to  it,  might  begin  to  live  to  God. " 

Iren^us  states  the  creed  of  the  church  in  his  day, 
A,  D.  1 60,  as  a  belief  in  '  'one  God,  the  Father  Aim  ighty. 
Maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  the 
The  Creed  of  sea,  and  all  things  that  are  in  them ; 

Irenasus.  and  in  one  Christ  Jesus,  the  Son  of 

God,  who  became  incarnate  for  our 
salvation;  and  in  the  Holy  Spirit  who  proclaimed 
through  the  prophets  the  dispensation  of  God,  and 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS.      85 

the  advents,  and  the  birth  from  a  virgin,  and 
the  passion,  and  the  resurrection  from  the  dead,  and 
the  ascension  into  heaven  in  the  flesh  of  the  beloved 
Christ  Jesus  our  Lord,  and  his  manifestation  from 
heaven  in  the  glory  of  the  Father  'to  gather  all 
things  in  one,'  (Eph.  i:  lo)  and  to  raise  up  anew  all 
flesh  of  the  whole  human  race,  in  order  that  to  Christ 
Jesus,  our  Lord,  and  God,  and  Savior,  and  King,  ac- 
cording to  the  will  of  the  invisible  Father,  '  every 
knee  should  bow,  of  things  in  heaven,  and  things  in 
earth,  and  things  under  the  earth,  and  that  every 
tongue  should  confess  to  him, '(Phil,  ii:  10,  11)  and 
that  he  should  execute  just  judgment  towards  all; 
that  he  may  send  '  spiritual  wickednesses, '  (Eph.  vi : 
12)  and  the  angels  who  transgressed  and  became  apos- 
tates, together  with  the  ungodly  and  unrighteous, 
and  wicked  and  profane  among  men,  into  aionion 
fire;  and  may  in  the  exercise  of  his  grace,  confer  im- 
mortality upon  the  righteous,  and  holy,  and  those 
who  have  kept  his  commandments,  and  have  perse- 
vered in  his  love,  some  from  the  beginning,  and  others 
from  their  repentance,  and  may  surround  them  with 
everlasting  glory. " 

The  reader  must  not  forget  that  the  use  of  the 
phrase,  aiojiion  fire,  does  not  give  any  color  to  the 
idea  that  lRENif:us  taught  endless  punishment,  for 
Origen,  Clement,  Gregory  Nyssen,  and  other  Uni- 
versalists  conveyed  their  ideas  of  punishment  by  the 
use  of  the  same  terms,  and  held  that  salvation  is  be- 
yond, and  even  by  means  of  the  aionion  fire  and  pun- 
ishment. 

ScHAFF  admits  that  the  opinions  of  Iren^eus  are 


86     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

doubtful  from  his  (Schaff's)  orthodox  standpoint  and 
says :  ^2  "In  the  fourth  Pf  affian  frag- 
Probably  a  ment  ascribed  to  him  (Stieren  I,  889) 
Universalist.  he  says  that  '  Christ  will  come  at  the 
end  of  time  to  destroy  all  evil — Trai/ 
TO  KaKov — and  to  reconcile  all  things — ets  to  dTroKaraX- 
Aa^at  Ta  TTui/Ta  from  Col.  i:20 — that  there  maybe  an 
end  of  all  impurity.  *  This  passage,  like  I.  Cor.  xv:  28, 
and  Col.  i :  20,  looks  toward  universal  restoration  rather 
than  annihilation, "  but  good,  orthodox  Dr.  Schaff 
admits  thatit,like  the  Pauline  passages,allows  an  inter- 
pretation consistent  with  eternal  punishm-ent.  (See 
the  long  note  in  Stieren.)  Dr.  Beecher  writes  that 
Iren^us  "  taught  a  final  restitution  of  all  things  to 
unity  and  order  by  the  annihilation  of  all  the  finally 
impenitent.  *  *  *  The  inference  from  this  is 
plain.  He  did  not  understand  aionios  in  the  sense  of 
eternal ;  but  in  the  sense  claimed  by  Prof.  Lewis,  that 
is,  'pertaining  to  the  world  to  come,'"  not  endless. 
iRENiEus  thought  "  that  man  should  not  last  forever 
as  a  sinner  and  that  the  sin  which  was  in  him  might 
not  be  immortal  and  infinite  and  incurable. " 

Says  BuNSEN :  ' '  The  eternal  decree  of  redemption, 

is,   to  Iren/eus,   throughout,  an  act  of  God's  love. 

The  atonement,  is,  according  to  him, 

,  ...  a  satisfaction  paid,  not  to  God,  but 

Bunsen  s  View.  ^       '  ' 

to  the  Devil,  under  whose  power  the 

human  mind  and  body  were  lying. 

But  the  Devil  himself  only  serves  God's  purpose,  for 

nothing  can  resist  to  the  last,  the  Almighty  power  of 

divine   love,    which    works   not    by  constraint  (the 

'2Vol.  I,  p.  493, 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS.       87 

Devil's  way),  but  by  persuasion. "  ^^  The  different 
statements  of-  Iren^-us  are  hard  to  reconcile  with  each 
other,  but  a  fair  inference  from  his  language  seems 
to  be  that  he  hovx^red  between  the  doctrines  of  anni- 
hilation and  endless  punishment,  and  yet  leaned  not 
a  little  hopefully  to  t'hat  of  restoration.  He  certainly 
says  that  death  ends  sin,  which  forecloses  all  idea  of 
endless  torments.  It  is  probable  that  the  fathers 
differed,  as  their  successors  have  since  differed,  ac- 
cording to  antecedent  and  surrounding  influences, 
and  their  own  idiosyncrasies. 

Of  Christian  writers  up  to  date,  all  assert  future 
punishment,  seven  apply  the  word  rendered  ever- 
lasting (ai&nws)  to  it;  three,  certainly  did  not  regard 
it  as  endless,  two  holding  to  annihilation  and  one  to 
universal  restoration.  Remembering,  however,  the 
doctrine  of  Reserve,  we  can  by  no  means  be  certain 
that  the  heathen  words  used  denoting  absolute  end- 
lessness were  not  used  "  pedagogically, "  to  deter  sin- 
ners from  sin. 

QuADRATUS. — QuADRATus,  A.  D.  131,  addrcsscd 
an  Apology  to  the  Emperor  Adrian,  a  fragment  of 
which  survives,  but  there  is  no  word  in  it  relating  to 
the  final  condition  of  mankind. 

The  Clementine  Homilies,  once  thought  to  have 
been  written  by  Clement  of  Rome,  but  properly  enti- 
tled by  Baur  "Pseudo    Clementine,"   the  work    of 


i^Longfellow  gives  expression  to  the  same  thought: 
"  It  is  Lucifer,  Son  of  Mystery 
And  since  God  suffers  him  to  be, 
He,  too,  is  God's  minister 
And  labors  for  some  good 
By  us  not  understood." 


88    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

some  Gnostic    Christian — teach    the    final    triumph 
of  good.     One  passage  speaks  of  the 
The  Clementine        destruction  of  the  wicked  by  the  pun- 
Hornilies.  ishment  of  fire,  "punished  with  rt'/^«- 

ion  fire,"  but  this  is  more  than  can- 
celed by  other  passages  in  which  it  is  clearly  taught 
that  the  Devil  is  but  a  temporal  evil,  a  servant  of 
good,  and  agent  of  God,  who,  with  all  his  evil  works, 
are  finally  to  be  transformed  into  good.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  Devil  is  not  properly  an  evil,  but  a  God- 
serving  being;  on  the  other,  there  is  a  final  trans- 
formation of  the  Devil,  of  the  evil  into  good.  The 
sentiments  of  the  Homilies  seem,  however,  somewhat 
contradictory. 

It  is  an  important  consideration  not  always  real- 
ized, when  studying  the  opinions  that  prevailed  in 
the  primitive  church,  that  the  earliest  copies  of  the 
Gospels  were  not  in  existence  until  A.  D.  60;  that 
the  first  Epistle  written  by  Paul — ist  Thessalo- 
nians — was  not  written  till  A.  D.  52;  that  the 
New  Testament  canon  was  not  completed  until 
A.  D.  170;  that  for  a  long  time  the  only  Chris- 
tian Bible  was  the  Old  Testament ;  ^*  that  the  ac- 
count of  the  judgment  in  Matt,  xxv  is  never  re- 
ferred to  in  the  writings  of  the  apostolic  fathers, 
who  probably  never  saw  or  heard  of  it-  till  towards 
the  end  of  the  Second  Century;  and,  therefore,  when 
considering  the  opinions  of  the  fathers  for  at  least  a 
century  and  a  half,  we  must  in  all  cases  interpret 
them  by  the  Old  Testament,  which  scholars  of  all 
churches  concede  does  not  reveal  the  doctrine  of  end- 

"Westcott  Int.  to  Gospels,  p.  181. 


THE  APOSTLES'  IMMEDIATE  SUCCESSORS.      89 

less  woe.  Probably  not  a  single  Christian  writer 
heretofore  quoted  ever  saw  a  copy  o£  the  Gospels. 

Athenagoras  wrote  an  "Apology,"  about  A.  D, 
178,  and  a  "  Treatise  on  the  Resurrection."  He  was 
a  scholar  and  a  philosopher,  and  made 
Athenagoras  great  efforts  to  convert  the  heathen 

and  Theophilus.  to  Christianity.  He  declared  that 
there  shall  be  a  judgment,  the  award 
of  which  shall  be  distributed  according  to  conduct ; 
but  he  nowhere  refers  to  the  duration  of  punishment. 
He  was,  however,  the  head  of  the  Catechetical 
school  in  Alexandria,  ^before  Pant^enus,  and  must 
have  shared  the  Umiversalist  views  of  Pant^nus, 
Clement  and  Origen,  his  successors. 

Theophilus  (A.  D.  180).  This  author  has  left  a 
"Treatise  "-in  behalf  of  Christianity,  addressed  to 
AuTOLYcus,  a  learned  heathen.  He  uses  current  lan- 
guage on  the  subject  of  punishment,  but  says:  "Just 
as  a  vessel,  which,  after  it  has  been  made,  has  some 
flaw,  is  remade  or  remodeled,  that  it  may  become  new 
and  right,  so  it  comes  to  man  by  death.  For,  in  some 
way  or  other  he  is  broken  up,  that  he  may  come  forth 
in  the  resurrection  whole,  I  mean  spotless,  and  right- 
eous, and  immortal. " 

The  preceding  writers  were  "orthodox,"  but  there 
were  at  the  same  time  Gnostic  Christians,  none  of 
whose  writings  remain  except  in  quotations  contained 
in  orthodox  authors,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  frag- 
ments. They  seem  to.  have  amalgamated  Christian- 
ity with  Orientalism.  But  they  have  been  so  mis- 
represented by  their  opponents  that  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  arrive  at  their  real  opinions  on  all  subjects. 
Happily  they  speak  distinctly  on  human  destiny. 


VII. 

THREE  GNOSTIC  SECTS. 

Three  Gnostic  sects  flourished  nearly  simultane- 
ously in  the  Second  Century,  all  which  accepted  uni- 
versal salvation:  the  Basilidians,  the  Valentinians, 
and  the  Carpocratians. 

The  Basilidians  were  followers  of  Basilides,  who 
lived  about  A.  D.  117- 138.     He  was  a  Gnostic  Chris- 
tian and  an  Egyptian  philosopher.  He 
wrote  an  alleged  Gospel — exegetical 
rather   than  historical — no  trace    of 
which  remains.     As  some  of  his  theo- 
ries did  not  agree  with  those    generally  advocated 
by  Christians,   he  and  his  followers  were  regarded 
as    heretics    and     their    writings   were    destroyed, 
though  no  evidence  exists  to  show  that  their  view  of 
hiiman   destiny  was  obnoxious.      Greek  philosophy 
and  Christian  faith  are  mingled  in  the  electicism  of 
the  Basilidians.     Basilides  taught  that  man's  univer- 
sal redemption  will  result  from  the  birth  and  death 
of  Christ.     According  to  the   "  Dictionary  of  Chris- 
tian Biography,"^  Hippolytus  gives  an  exposition  of 
this  mystic  Christian  sect.     Basilides  himself  was  a 
sincere  Christian,  and  "the  first  Gnostic  teacher  who 
has  left  an  individual,  personal  stamp  upon  the  age.  "^ 
He  accepted  the  entire  Gospel  narrative,  and  taught 

>Vol.I,  pp,  271,2. 

2  BuDsen's  Hipp,  and  His  Age,  Vol.  I.  p.  107. 

90 


THREE  GNOSTIC  SECTS.  91 

that  the  wicked  will  be  condemned  to  migrate  into 
the  bodies  of  men  or  animals  until  purified,  when  they 
will  be  saved  with  all  the  rest  of  mankind.  He  did 
not  pretend  that  his  ideas  of  transmigration  were  ob- 
tained from  the  Scriptures  but  affirmed  that  he  de- 
rived them  from  philosophy.  He  held  that  the  doc- 
trines of  Christianity  have  a  two-fold  character — one 
phase  simple,  popular,  obtained  from  the  plain  read- 
ing of  the  New  Testament;  the  other  sublime,  secret, 
mysteriously  imparted  to  favored  ones.  His  system 
was  a  sort  of  Egyptian  metempsychosis  grafted  on 
Christianity,  an  Oriental  mysticism  endeavoring  to 
stand  on  a  Christian  foundation,  and  thus  solve  the 
problem  of  human  destiny.  Man  and  nature  are  rep- 
resented as  struggling  upwards.  "The  restoration 
of  all  things  that  in  the  beginning  were  established 
in  the  seed  of  the  universe  shall  be  restored  in  their 
own  season." 

Iren^us  charges  the  Basilidians  with  immorality, 
but  Clement,  who  knew  them  better,  denies  it,  and 
defends  them  ^ 

The  Carpocratians  were  followers  of  Carpocrates, 
a  Platonic  philosopher,  who  incorporated  some  of  the 
elements  of  the  Christian  religion  into 
his  system  of  philosophy.     The  sect 
•^  "^     '     ■  flourished  in  Egypt  and  vicinity  early 
in  the  Second  Century.     Like  the  Ba- 
silidians they  called  themselves  Gnostics,  and  incul- 
cated a  somewhat  similar  set  of  theories.     Iren^us 
says  that   the    Carpocratians    explained    the    text: 
"Thou  shalt  not  go  out  thence  until  thou  hast  paid 

*The  standard  authorities  on  the  subject  of  Gnosticism  are  Neander, 
Baur,  Matter,  Bigg,  Mansel  (Gnostic  Heresies). 


92    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

the  uttermost  farthing, "  as  teaching  ' '  that  no  one  can 
escape  from  the  power  of  those  angels  who  made  the 
world,  but  that  he  must  pass  from  body  to  body  until 
he  has  experience  of  every  kind  of  action  which  can 
be  practised  in  this  world,  and  when  nothing  is  want- 
ing longer  to  him,  then  his  liberated  soul  should  soar 
iipwards  to  that  God  who  is  above  the  angels,  the 
makers  of  the  world.  In  this  way  all  souls  are  saved, " 
etc.  But  while  Iren^us  calls  the  Carpocratians  a 
heretical  sect,  and  denounces  some  of  their  tenets,  he 
had  no  hard  words  for  their  doctrine  of  man's  final 
destiny. 

The  Valentinians  (A.  D.  130)  taught  that  all  souls 
will  be  finally  admitted  to  the  realms  of  bliss.     They 

denied  the  resurrection  of  the  body. 

Their  doctrines  were  widely  dissemi- 
e   a  en  inians.      ^ated   in   Asia,  Africa   and  Europe, 

after  the  death  of  their  Egyptian 
founder,  Valentine.  They  resembled  the  teachings 
of  Basilides  in  efforts  to  solve  the  problem  of  human 
destiny  philosophically.  Valentine  flourished  in 
Rome  from  A.  D.  129  to  132.  A  devout  Christian, 
and  a  man  of  the  highest  genius,  he  was  never  ac- 
cused of  anything  worse  than  heresy.  He  was  "a 
pioneer  in  Christian  theology. "  His  was  an  attempt 
to  show,  in  dramatic  form,  how  '  *  the  work  of  uni- 
versal redemption  is  going  on  to  the  ever- increasing 
glory  of  the  ineffable  and  unfathomable  Father,  and 
the  ever-increasing  blessedness  of  souls."  There  was 
a  germ  of  truth  in  the  hybrid  Christian  theogony  and 
Hellenic  philosophizing  that  made  up  Valentinian- 
ism.  It  was  a  struggle  after  the  only  view  of  human 
destiny  that  can  satisfy  the  human  heart. 


THREE  GNOSTIC  SECTS.  93 

These  three  sects  were  bitterly  opposed  by  the 
"orthodox  "  fathers  in  some  of  their  tenets,  bnt their 
Universalism  was  never  condemned. 

It  would  be  interesting-  to  give  an  exposition  of 
the  Gnosticism  that  for  some  of  the  earlier  centuries 
agitated  the  Christian  Church;  it  will 
Phases  of  suffice  for  our  purpose  here  to  say 

Gnosticism.  that    its   manifold   phases   were  at- 

tempts to  reach  satisfactory  conclu- 
sions on  the  great  subjects  of  man's  relations  to  his 
Maker,  to  his  fellow-men,  to  himself,  and  to  the  uni- 
verse— to  solve  the  problems  of  time  and  eternity. 
The  Gnostic  philosophies  in  the  church  show  the  re- 
sults of  blending  the  Oriental,  the  Jewish,  and  the 
Platonic  philosophies  with  the  new  religion.  "Gnos- 
ticism,* was  a  philosophy  of  religion,"  and  Christian 
Gnosticism  was  an  effort  to  explain  the  new  revela- 
tion philosophically.  But  there  were  Gnostics  and 
Gnostics.  Some  of  the  Christian  Fathers  used  the 
term  reproachfully,  and  others  appropriated  it  as  one 
of  honor.  Gnosis,  knowledge,  philosophy  applied  to 
religion,  was  deemed  all-important  by  Clement,  Ori- 
GEN,  and  the  most  prominent  of  the  Fathers.  Mere 
Gnostics  were  only  Pagan  philosophers,  but  Chris- 
tian Gnostics  were  those  who  accepted  Christ  as  the 
author  of  a  new  and  divine  revelation,  and  inter- 
preted it  by  those  principles  that  had  long  antedated 
the  religion  of  Jesus. ^  ' '  The  Gnostics  were  the  first 
regular  commentators  on  the  New  Testament. 
*     *     *     The  Gnostics  were  also  the  first  practition- 

«Baur,   Ch.   Hist.    First    Three   Cent.,  I,  pp.  184-200.      Baring  Gould's 
Lost  and  Hostile  Gospels,  p.  278. 
^Mansel,  Baur,  etc. 


94     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

ers  of  the  higher  criticism.  *  *  *  j^  (Gnos- 
ticism) may  be  regarded  as  a  half-way  house, 
through  which  many  Pagans,  ,like  Ambrosius  or 
St.  Augustine,  found  their  way  into  the  church. " 
(*'  Neoplatonism, "  by  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  Bigg.)  The 
Valentinians,  Basilidians,  Carpocratians,  Manichae- 
ans,  Marcionites  and  others  were  Christian  Gnostics; 
but  Clement,  Origen  and  the  great  Alexandrians 
and  their  associates  were  Gnostic  Christians.  In 
fact,  the  Gnostic  theories  sought  a  solution  of  the 
problem  of  evil;  to  answer  the  question,  "  Can  the 
world  as  we  know  it  have  been  made  by  God?" 
"Cease,"  says  Basilides,^  "  from  idle  and  curious 
variety,  and  let  us  rather  discuss  the  opinions  which 
even  barbarians  have  held  on  the  subject  of  good 
and  evil.  *  *  *  j  will  say  anything  rather  than 
admit  Providence  is  wicked. "  Valentinus  declared, 
' '  I  dare  not  affirm  that  God  is  the  author  of  all  this. " 
Tertullian  says  that  Marcion,  like  many  men  of 
our  time,  and  especially  the  heretics,  "is  bewildered 
by  the  question  of  evil. "  The  generally  accepted 
Gnostic  view  was  that  while  the  good  would  at 
death  ascend  to  dwell  with  the  Father,  the  wicked 
would  pass  through  transformations  until  purified. 

Says  Prof.  Allen  :  ' '  Gnosticism  is  a  genuine  and 
legitimate  outgrowth  of  the  same  general  movement 
of  thought  that  shaped  the  Christian  dogma.  Quite 
evidently  it  regarded  itself  as  the  true  interpreter  of 
the  Gospel. "  Baur  quotes  a  German  writer  as  giv- 
ing a  full  exposition  of  one  of  the  latest  attempts 
' '  to  bring  back  Gnosticism  to   a  greater  harmony 

•Stieren's  Ireiiffius  V,  901-3.    Clem.  Strom.  IV,  12. 


THREE  GNOSTIC  SECTS. 


95 


with  the  spirit  of  Christianity."  Briefly,  sophia  (wis- 
dom), as  the  type  of  mankind,  falls,  rises,  and  is 
united  to  the  eternal  Good.  Baur  says  that  Gnos- 
ticism declares  that  "either  through  conversion  and 
amendment,  or  through  utter  annihilation,  evil  is  to 
disappear,  and  the  final  oroal  of  the  whole  world- pro- 
cess is  to  be  reached,  viz.,  the  purification  of  the 
universe  from  all  that  is  unworthy  and  perverted. " 
H  ARNACK  says  that  Gnosticism  *  'aimed  at  the  winning 
of  a  world-religion.  The  Gnostics  were  the  theolo- 
gians of  the  First  Century;  they  were  the  first  to 
transform  Christianity  into  a  system  of  doctrines 
(dogmas).  They  essayed  *  *  *  to  conquer  Chris- 
tianity for  Hellenic  culture  and  Hellenic  culture 
for  Christianity."^ 

Differing  from  the  so-called  "orthodox  "  Chris- 
tians on  many  points,  the  three  great  Gnostic  sects 
of  the  Second  Century  were  in  full 
Noteworthy  Facts,    agreement  with  Clement   and  Ori- 
GEN  and  the  Alexandrine  school,  and 
probably  with  the  great  majority  of 
Christians,  in  their  views  of  human  destiny.     They 
taught  the  ultimate  holiness  and  happiness  of  the 
human  family,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  though  the 
Gnostics  advocated  the  final  salvation  of  all  souls, 
and  though  the   orthodox  fathers  savagely  attacked 
them  on  many  points,  they  never  reckoned  their  Uni- 
versalism  as  a  fault.     This  doctrine  was  not  obnox- 
ious to  either  orthodox   or    heterodox  in  the  early 
centuries. 


'Outlines  ot  the  Hist,  of  Dogma,  pp.  68,  9. 


VIII. 

THE  SIBYLLINE  ORACLES. 

The  oldest  Christian  document  since  the  New- 
Testament,  explicitly  avowing  the  doctrine  of 
universal  restoration,  is  the  "Sibylline  Oracles. '"^ 
Different  portions  of  this  composition  were  written 
at  different  dates,  from  i8i  B.  C.  to  267  A.  D.  The 
portion  expressing-  universal  salvation  was  written  by 
an  Alexandrine  Christian,  about  A.  D.  80,  and  the 
"  Oracles  "  were  in  general  circulation  from  A.  D. 
100  onward,  and  are  referred  to  with  great  consider- 
ation for  many  centuries  subsequently. 

After  describing  the  destruction  of  the  world, 
which  the  Sibyl  prophesies,  and  the  consignment  of 

the  wicked  to  aionion  torment,  such 
The  Righteous  ,.        ,  ^        ,         •     ,,   ^ 

Pray  for  the  ^^  °^^  Lord  teaches  m  Matt,  xxv :  46, 

Wicked.  '^^  blessed  inhabitants  of  heaven  are 

represented  as  being  made  wretched 
by  the  thought  of  the  sufferings  of  the  lost,  and  as  be- 
seeching God  with  united  voice  to  release  them.  God 
accedes  to  their  request,  and  delivers  them  from  their 
torment  and  bestows  happiness  upon  them.  The 
"Oracles"  declare:  "The  omnipotent,  incorruptible 
God  shall  confer  another  favor  on  his  worshipers, 
when  they  shall  ask  him.  He  shall  save  mankind 
from  the  pernicious   fire  and  immortal  {athanaton) 

12IBYAAIAK0I  XPH2M0I. 

96 


THE  SIBYLLINE  ORACLES.  97 

agonies.  *  *  *  Having  gathered  them  and  safely 
secured  them  from  the  imwearied  flame,  *  *  * 
he  shall  send  them,  for  his  people's  sake,  into  another 
and  seonian  life  with  the  immortals  on  the  Elysian 
plain,  where  flow  perpetually  the  long  dark  waves  of 
the  deep  sea  of  Acheron.  "^ 

The  punishments  of  the  wicked  are  here  described 
in  the  strongest  possible  terms;  they  are  "  eternal," 
{aionion),  ''immortal"  {athanaton),  and  yet  it  is  de- 
clared that  at  the  request  of  the  righteous,  God  will 
deliver  them  from  those  torments. 

The  Sibyl  anticipates  the  poet  Whittier: 

"Still  thy  love,  O  Christ  arisen, 

Yearns  to  reach  those  souls  in  prison; 

Through  all  depths  of  sin  and  loss 

Drops  the  plummet  of  thy  cross; 

Never  yet  abyss  was  found 

Deeper  than  that  cross  could  sound; 

Deep  below  as  high  above 

Sweeps  the  circle  of  God's  love." 

Holmes  expresses  the  same  sentiment: 
"  What  if  (a)  spirit  redeemed,  amid  the  host 
Of  chanting  angels,  in  some  transient  lull 
Of  the  eternal  anthem  heard  the  cry 
Of  its  lost  darling.    *    *    * 
Would  it  not  long  to  leave  the  bliss  of  heaven 
Bearing  a  little  water  in  its  hand, 
To  moisten  those  poor  lips  that  plead  in  vain 
With  him  we  call  Our  Father?" 

This  famous  document  was  quoted  by  Athe- 
NAGORAS,  Theophilus,  Justin  Martyr,  Lactantius, 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen,  Eusebius  and  Au- 
gustine.    Clement  calls  the  author  "the  prophet- 


«B.  VIII.  inverses  195-340  Ed.    Opsopoei.  Paris:  1667. 


qS    universalism  in  the  early  centuries. 

ess."  As  late  as  the  Middle  Ages  the  " Oracles "  was 
well  known,  and  its  author  was  ranked  with  David. 
When  Thomas  of  Celano  composed  the  great  Hymn 
of  the  Judgment,  he  said: 

"Dies  Irae,  dies  ilia, 
Solvet  saeclum  in  favilla, 
Teste  David  cum  Sibylla," — 

* '  the  dreadful  day  of  wrath  shall  dissolve  the  world 
into  ashes,  as  David  and  the  Sibyl  testify. " 

The  best  scholars  concede  the  Universalism  of  the 
"Oracles."  Says  Musardus,^  the  "  Oracles  "  teach 
"  that  the  damned  shall  be  liberated  after  they  shall 
have  endured  infernal  punishments  for  many  ages, 
*  *  *  which  was  an  error  of  Origen."  And 
Opsopceus  adds*  "  that  the  '  Oracles  '  teach  that  the 
wicked  suffering  in  hell  (Gehenna)  after  a  certain 
period,  and  through  expiations  of  griefs,  would  be 
released  from  punishments,  which  was  the  opinion  of 
Origen,"  etc.  Hades,  and  all  things  and  persons 
are  cast  into  unquenchable  fire  for  purification;  that 
is,  the  fire  is  unquenchable  until  it  has  accomplished 
its  purpose  of  purification.  Gehenna  itself,  as  Origen 
afterwards  insisted,  purifies  and  surrenders  its  pris- 
oners. The  wicked  are  to  suffer  "  immortal "  ago- 
nies and  then  be  saved. 

Dr.  Westcott  remarks  of  the  "Oracles:"  "  They 


'Historia  Deorum  Fatidicorum,  Vatum  Sibyllorum,  etc.,  p.  184:  (1675.) 
Dicit  damnatos  liberandos  postquam  pcenas  infernales  per  aliquot  secula 
erunt  perpessi,  qui  Origenis  fuit  error. 

*Notes  (p.  27)  to  Bib.  Orac  (Paris:  1607).  "  Impii  gehennae  supplicio 
addicti  post  certi  temporis  metas  et  peccatorum  per  dolores  expiationem,  ex 
poenis  liberentur.    Quae  sententia  fuit  Origenis,  etc." 


THE  SIBYLLINE  ORACLES.  99 

stand  alone  as  an  attempt  to  embrace  all  history, 

even  in  its  details,  in  one  great,  theo- 

The  Oracles  are        cratic  view,  and  to  regard  the  king- 

r  y      ns  lan        ^oms   of  the    world    as  destined  to 

form  provinces  in  a  future  Kingdom 

of  God." 

While  the  views  of  retribution  are  not  elevated, 
and  represent  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  as  in 
literal  fire,  and  not  a  moral  discipline,  such  as  O  bi- 
GEN  taught,  they  clearly  teach  universal  salvation 
beyond  all  asonian,  even  athanaton  suffering.  A 
noted  writer^  declares:  "The  doctrine  of  Univer- 
salism  is  brought  forward  in  more  than  one  passage 
of  this  piece;"  though  elsewhere  Dr.  Deane  mis- 
states, inconsistently  enough,  the  language  of  the 
Sibyl,  thus:  "  God,  hearkening  to  the  prayers  of  the 
saints,  shall  save  some  from  the  pains  of  hell. "  He 
mistranslates  antJiropois  into  "some"  instead  of 
"mankind,"  the  meaning  of  the  word,  in  order  to 
show  that  the  Sibyl  "does  not,  like  Origen,  believe 
in  universal  salvation. "  And  yet  he  is  forced  to  add : 
' '  This  notion  of  the  salvation  of  any  is  opposed  to 
the  sentiment  elsewhere  expressed  *  *  *  where 
in  picturing  the  torments  of  hell  the  writer  asserts 
that  there  is  no  place  for  repentance  or  any  mercy  or 
hope."  But  Dr.  Deane  forgets  that  the  acknowl- 
edged Universalists  of  the  early  church  employed 
equally  strong  terms  concerning  the  duration  of  pun- 
ishment. The  use  of  the  terms  signifying  endless 
torment  employed  by  the  Sibyl,  as  by  Origen  and 
others,  did  not  preclude  the  idea  of  the  ultimate  sal- 

fiWilliam  J.  Deane,  Pseudepigrapha,  p.  329. 


loo     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

vation  of  those  thus  punished.  Origen  taught  that 
the  most  stubborn  sins  will  be  "extinguished"  by 
the  "  eternal  fire,"  just  as  the  Sibyl  says  the  wicked 
perish  in  "immortal"  fire  and  are  subsequently 
saved. 

In  line  with  Deane's  strange  contradictions  may  be 
mentioned  another  of  the  many  curiosities  of  criti- 
cism. An  English  prose  version  of 
Sir  John  Floyer's  the  Sibyl's  Homeric  hexameters  was 
Blunder.  made  in  1713  by  Sir  John  Floyer.^ 

He  denies  that  the  "  Oracles"  teach 
universal  salvation  at  all,  but  in  order  to  sustain  his 
position  he  omits  to  translate  one  word,  and  mis- 
translates another!  He  renders  the  entire  passage 
thus:  "The  Almighty  and  incorruptible  God  shall 
grant  this  also  to  the  righteous  when  they  shall  pray  to 
him ;  that  he  will  preserve  them  (literally  save  man- 
kind, anthropois  sosai)  from  the  pernicious  fire  and 
everlasting  gnashing  of  teeth;  and  this  will  he  do 
when  he  gathers  the  faithful  from  the  eternal  fire, 
placing  them  in  another  region,  he  shall  send  them 
by  his  own  angels  into  another  life,  which  will  be 
eternal  to  them  that  are  immortal,  in  the  Elysian 
fields,"  etc. 

It  is  only  by  rendering  the  words  denoting  "  save 
mankind,"  "deliver  them,"  that  he  make?  his  point. 
A  correct  rendering  coincides  with  the  declarations 
of  most  scholars,  that  universal  salvation  is  taught  in 
this  unique  document. 

The  Sibyl  declares  that  the  just  and  the  unjust 
pass  through    "unquenchable    fire,"   and    that    all 

®"The  Sibylline  Oracles,   Translated  from  the  Best  Greek  Copies  and 
Compared  with  the  Sacred  Prophecies." 


THE  SIBYLLINE  ORACLES.  loi 

things,  even  Hades,  are  to  be  purified  by  the  divine 
fire.  And  after  the  unjust  have  been  released  from 
Hades,  they  are  committed  to  Gehenna,  and  then  at 
the  desire  of  the  righteous,  they  are  to  be  removed 
thence  to  "a  life  eternal  for  immortals."  (B.  H, 
vv:   211-250-340). 

Augustine  (De  Civ.  Dei.  B.,  XVIH)  cited  the 
famous  acrostic  on  the  Savior's  name  as  a  proof  that 
the  Sibyl  foretold  the  coming  of  Jesus.  And  it  is 
curious  to  note  that  in  his  ' '  City  of  God, "  when  stat- 
ing tha.t  certain  "merciful  doctors"  denied  the  eter- 
nity of  punishment,  he  gives  the  same  reasons  they 
assign  for  their  belief  that  the  Sibyl  names.  He 
quotes  the  "  merciful  doctors  "  as  saying  that  Chris- 
tians in  this  world  possess  the  disposition  to  forgive 
their  enemies,  that  they  will  not  lay  aside  those  traits 
at  death,  but  will  pity,  forgive,  and  pray  for  the 
wicked.  The  redeemed  will  unite  in  this  prayer  and 
will  not  God  feel  pity,  and  answer  the  prayer  in 
which  all  the  saved  unite?  Augustine  presents 
these  unanswerable  objections,  and  devotes  many 
pages  to  a  very  feeble  reply  to  them. 

So  fully  did  the  Christians  of  the  First  Century 
recognize  the  "Oracles,"  and  appeal  to  them,  that 
they  were  frequently  styled  the  Sibylists.  Celsus 
applied  the  word  to  them,  and  Origen,  though  he  ac- 
cepted the  Sibyl's  teachings  concerning  destiny,  ob- 
jected that  the  term  was  not  justly  applied.  This  he 
does  in  "  Ag.  Cels."  V.  61.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
not  only  calls  the  Sibyl  a  prophetess,  but  her  "Ora- 
cles "  a  saving  hymn. 

Lactantius  cited  fifty  passages  from  the  Sibyl  in 
his  evidences  of  Christianity. 


102    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

No  book,  not  even  the  New  Testament,  exerted 
a  wider  influence  on  the  first  centuries  of  the  church, 
than  the  "  Sibylline  Oracles. " 

Quite  a  literature  of  the  subject  exists  in  the  peri- 
odical publications  of  the  past  few  years,  but  there 
are  very  few  references  to  the  Universalism  of  the 
"  Oracles.  "  The  "  Edinburgh  Review"  (July,  1867) 
is  an  exception.  It  states  that  the  "Oracles"  de- 
clare "the  Origenist  belief  of  a  universal  restoration 
(V.  3s)  of  all  men,  even  to  the  unjust,  and  the  devils 
themselves."  The  "  Oracles  "  are  specially  valuable 
in  showing  the  opinions  of  the  first  Christians  after 
the  apostles,  and,  as  they  aim  to  convert  Pagans  to 
Christ,  and  employ  this  doctrine  as  one  of  the  weap- 
ons, it  must  at  that  time  have  been  considered  a 
prominent  Christian  tenet,  and  the  candid  student  is 
forced  to  conclude  that  they  give  expression  to  the 
prevalent  opinion  of  those  days  on  the  subject  of 
human  destiny. 

The  reader  must  not  fail  to  observe  that  the  "Sib- 
ylline Oracles  "  explicitly  state  the  deliverance  of 
the  damned  from  the  torments  of  hell.  They  repeat- 
edly call  the  suffering  everlasting,  even  "immortal," 
yet  declare  that  it  shall  end  in  the  restoration  of  the 
lost. 


IX. 

PANT^NUS  AND  CLEMENT. 

There  is  nothing  known  to  exist  from  the  pen  of 
PANTiENUs,  but  we  Icam  from  Eusebius  that  this  dis- 
tinguished scholar  and  teacher  was  at  the  head  of  the 
Catechetical  school  in  Alexandria  as  early  as  A  D.  179, 
having  succeeded  Anaxagoras.  This  celebrated  in- 
stitution had  been  in  existence  since  A.  D.  100-120. 
Tradition  asserts  that  it  was  founded  by  the  apos- 
tles.^ Jerome  says,  "  a  Marco  Evangelista  semper 
ecclesiastici  fuere  doctores. "  It  had  been  up  to  the 
time  of  Pant^enus  a  school  for  proselytes,  but  he 
made  it  a  theological  seminary,  and  so  was  the  real 
founder  of  the  Catechetical  institution. .2 

PANT^NUswasa  convert  from  Stoicism, and  is  de- 
scribed by  Clement,  Jerome,  and  others  as  a  man  of 
superior  learning  and  abilities.    Cle- 

,„.  .'       '     „  MENT   calls  him    "that  Sicilian  bee 

"Sicilian  Bee. 

gathering  the  spoil  of  the  flowers  of 
the  prophetic  and  apostolic  meadow;"  "the  deepest 
Gnostic,"  by  which  he  means  "the  deepest  philo- 
sophical Christian,  the  man  who  best  understood  and 
practised  Scripture.  "  It  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
that  the  teacher  of  Clement  cherished  the  religious 


iRobertson  Hist.  Ch.,  Vol.  I,  p.  90:  Bingham,  VoL  HI,  x,  5;  Neander, 
Hist..  Ch.  ii,  227;  Mosheim  Com.  I.  p.  263;  Butler's  Lives  of  the  Saints  VH 
pp.  55-59. 

^Similar  institutions  were  in  Antioch,  Athens,  Edessa,  Nisibis  and 
Caesarea. 

103 


104     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

views  with  which  his  great  disciple  was  graduated, 
for  of  Pant^enus,  Clement  says:  "  I  know  what  is 
the  weakness  of  these  reflections,  if  I  compare  them 
with  the  gifted  and  gracious  teaching  I  was  privileged 
to  hear. "  Some  of  his  writings  are  alluded  to,  but 
though  nothing  remains,  yet  in  Clement,  who  was 
inspired  by  him,  he  gave  to  the  church  a  priceless 
legacy. 

A.  D.  189  Pant^nus  went  on  a  missionary  tour  to 
India,  and  Eusebius  says  that  while  there  he  found 
the  seeds  of  the  Christian  faith  that  had  been  sown  by 
previous  missionaries,  and  that  he  brought  home 
with  him  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  in  Hebrew,  that 
had  been  carried  to  India  by  Bartholomew.  May 
it  not  be  that  some  of  the  precepts  of  Buddhism  re- 
sembling those  of  Christ,  which  the  best  Oriental 
scholars  admit  are  of  later  origin  than  Buddha,  were 
caught  from  the  teachings  of  early  Christian  mission- 
aries?    PANTiENus  was  martyred  A.  D.  216. 

The  Universalism  of  Clement,  Origen  and  their 
successors  must,  beyond  question,  have  been  taught 
by  their  great  predecessor,  Pant^enus,  and  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  the  Alexandrine  school 
had  never  known  any  contrary  teaching,  from  its 
foundation. 

The  Alexandrine  School. 

At  this  time  Alexandria  was  the  second  city  in 
the  world,  with  a  population  of  600, 000 ;  its  great 
library  contained  from  400,000  to 
Alexandria  and  its  700,000  volumes;  at  one  time  14,000 
Famous  School.  students  are  said  to  have  been  assem- 
bled; and  it  was  the  center  of  the 
world's  learning,  culture,   thought;  the  seekers  for 


PANTi^NUS  AND  CLEMENT.  105 

truth  and  knowledge  from  all  climes  sought  inspira- 
tion at  its  shrines,  and  it  was  most  of  all  in  its  inter- 
est to  us,  not  only  the  radiating  center  of  Christian 
influence,  but  its  teachers  and  school  made  universal 
salvation  the  theme  of  Christian  teaching. 

"To  those  old  Christians  a  being  who  was  not 
seeking  after  every  single  creature,  and  trying  to 
raise  him,  could  not  be  a  being  of  absolute  righteous- 
ness, power,  love;  could  not  be  a  being  worthy  of 
respect  or  admiration,  even  of  philosophic  specula- 
tion. The  Alexandrian  Christians  expounded  and 
corroborated  Christianity,  and  adapted  it  to  all  classes 
and  conditions  of  men,  and  made  the  best,  perhaps 
the  only,  attempt  yet  made  by  man  to  proclaim  a 
true  world-philosophy  *  *  *  embracing  the 
whole  phenomena  of  humanity,  capable  of  being 
understood  and  appreciated  by  every  human  being 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest. "  The  result  was, '  'they 
were  enabled  to  produce,  in  the  lives  of  millions, 
generation  after  generation,  a  more  immense  moral 
improvement  than  the  world  had  ever  seen  before. 
Their  disciples  did  actually  become  righteous  and 
good  men,  just  in  proportion  as  they  were  true  to  the 
lessons  they  learnt.  They  did  for  centuries  work  a 
distinct  and  palpable  deliverance  on  the  earth. "  * 

Alexandria  was  founded  by  Alexander  the 
Great,  332  B.  C. ,  and  it  speedily  became  a  great  city. 
After  two  centuries,  however,  it  declined,  until  B.  C. 
30  when  Augustus  made  it  an  imperial  city.  In  196 
A.  D.  its  municipality,  which  had  been  lost  for  two 
centuries,  was  restored;  from  this  time  on  it  resumed 

*Kingsley's  Alexandria  and  Her  Schools, 


io6    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

its  old  prosperity,  which  continued  until  internal 
dissensions  weakened  it,  and  A.  D.  640,  after  a  siege 
of  fourteen  months,  it  was  taken  by  the  Arabs  under 
Amru,  and  among  other  disasters  the  great  library 
was  destroyed.  This  library  contained  the  precious 
manuscripts  of  Origen  and  multitudes  of  others  that 
might  shed  great  light  on  our  theme.  Abulphara- 
Gius  relates  that  John  the  Grammarian,  a  famous 
peripatetic  philosopher,  begged  Amru  to  give  him 
the  library.  Amru  forwarded  the  request  to  Omar, 
who  replied  that  if  the  books  contained  the  same 
doctrines  as  the  Koran  they  were  not  needed;  if  con- 
trary to  it  they  ought  not  to  be  preserved,  and  they 
were  therefore  ordered  to  be  burnt.  Accordingly 
they  were  distributed  among  the  4, 000  public  baths 
of  the  city,  where  they  furnished  the  fuel  for  six 
months! 

Alexandria  continued  to  decline  until  the  discovery 
of  the  route  to  the  East  in  1497  ruined  its  commerce, 
and  it  sank  to  a  population  of  6,000.  But  the  open- 
ing of  the  Mahmoudieh  canal  in  1820  has  increased 
its  prosperity,  and  it  is  now  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant cities  of  the  world.  In  1 871  it  had  a  population 
of  219,602.  At  the  time  of  Christ,  and  for  two  hun- 
dred years  after,  Alexandria  was  at  the  height  of  its 
greatness.  From  the  time  of  Ptolemy  Soter  (306- 
285  B.  C),  the  books,  scholars  and  learning  of  the 
world  were  centered  in  this  great  city.  The  relig- 
ions and  philosophies  of  the  world  met  here  and  cre- 
ated an  intense  life  of  thought.  Jews,  Christians, 
Pagans  were  gathered  and  met  in  intellectual  con- 
flict as  nowhere  else.  It  was  here  that  Clement, 
Origen,  and  their  followers  exerted  their  best  influ- 


PANT^NUS  AND  CLEMENT.  107 

ence,  and  that  Christianity  preserved  its  purity  for 
centuries. 

"  The  north  of  Africa  was  then  crowded  with 
rich  and  populous  cities,  and  formed  with  Egypt  the 
granary  of  the  world.  *  *  *  In  no  part  of  the 
empire  had  Christianity  taken  more  deep  and  per- 
manent root.  *  *  *  Africa,  rather  than  Rome, 
was  the  parent  of  Latin  Christianity.  Tertullian 
was  at  this  period  the  chief  representative  of  African 
Christianity  *  *  *  still  later  Cyprian,  and  later 
still  Augustine.  To  us,  preoccupied  with  the  mod- 
ern insignificance  of  the  Egyptian  town,  it  requires 
an  effort  of  the  mind  to  realize  that  Alexandria  was 
once  the  second  largest  city  in  the  world,  and  the  sec- 
ond greatest  patriarchate  of  the  church,  the  church 
of  Clement,  Origen,  Athanasius  and  Cyril.  It 
gives  us  a  kind  of  mental  shock  when  we  recall  that 
the  land  of  Tertullian,  Cyprian  and  Augustine  is 
the  modem  Tunis  and  Algiers." 

"The  seat  and  center  of   Christianity  during  the 
first  three  centuries  was  Alexandria.     West  of  Alex- 
andria the  influence  of  the  Latins, 
Alexandria  the  Tertullian,  Cyprian,  MiNucius  Fe- 

Christian  ,      .  -i    j  j 

M  troDolis  ^^^   ^        Augustine   prevailed,  and 

their  type  of  Christianity  was  warped 
and  developed  by  the  influence  of  Roman  law. 
Maine  says  that  in  going  from  East  to  West  theo- 
logical speculation  passed  from  Greek  metaphysics 
to  Roman  law.  The  genius  of  Augustine,  thus 
controlled,  gave  rise  to  Calvinism.  The  gloomy  and 
precise  Tertullian,  the  vigorous  and  austere 
Cyprian,  bishop  of  Carthage,  and  Augustine,  the 
gloomiest  and  most  materialistic  of  theologians,  who 


io8     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

may  almost  be  said  to  have  invented  the  hell  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  contributed  the  forces  that  later  adul- 
terated the  genuine  Christian  faith.  Even  yet  the 
Greek  population  of  the  Eastern  church,  who  read 
the  Greek  Gospels  as  we  read  the  English,  are  like 
the  Greek  fathers  of  the  first  ages  of  the  church; 
they  know  nothing  of  the  doctrine  invented  by  the 
Latin  theologians."  (Stanley's  Eastern  Church, p. 49.) 
"In  such  a  city  as  Alexandria — with  its  museum, 
its  libraries,  its  lectures,  its  schools  of  philosophy,  its 
splendid  synagogue,  its  avowed  atheists,  its  deep- 
thinking  Oriental  mystics — the  Gospel  would  have 
been  powerless  if  it  had  been  unable  to  produce  teach- 
ers who  were  capable  of  meeting  Pagan  philosophers 
and  Jewish  Philoists  on  their  own  ground.  Such 
thinkers  would  refuse  their  attention  to  men  who 
could  not  understand  their  reasonings,  sympathize 
with  their  perplexities,  refute  their  fundamental  ar- 
guments, and  meet  them  in  the  spirit  of  Christian 
courtesy.*  Different  instruments  are  needed  for  dif- 
ferent ends.  Where  Clement  of  Rome  might  have 
been  useless,  Clement  of  Alexandria  became  deeply 
influential.  Where  a  Tertullian  would  only  have 
aroused  contempt  and  indignation,  an  Origen  won 
leading  Pagans  to  the  faith  of  Christ.  From  Alex- 
andria came  the  refutation  of  Celsus;  from  Alexan- 
dria the  defeat  of  Arius.  It  was  the  cradle  of  Chris- 
tian theology.^  "There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  won- 
derful advance  of  Christianity  among  the  cultivated, 
during  the  First  and  Second  Centuries,  was  made  by 

^Matter's  Hist,  de  I'Ecole  d'Alexandrie;  Kingsley's  Alexandria  and  Her 
Schools. 

fiFarrar's  Lives  ol  the  Fathers,  I,  pp.  262, 263. 


PANT^NUS  AND  CLEMENT.  109 

the  remarkable  men  who  founded  and  maintained  the 
Alexandrian  school  of  Christian  thought.  While  the 
common  people  heard  gladly  the  simple  story  of  the 
Gospel,  the  world's  scholars  were  attracted  and  won 
by  the  consummate  learning  and  genius  of  Clement 
andORiGEN,  and  their  coadjutors."  * 'Pagan  thinkers 
would  have  paid  attention  to  Clement  when  he  spoke 
of  Plato  as  truly  noble  and  half- inspired;  they  would 
have  looked  on  the  African  father  as  an  ignorant 
railer,  who  had  nothing  better  to  say  of  Socrates 
than  that  he  was  '  the  Attic  buffoon,'  of  Aristotle 
than  *  miseriun  Aristotelem!'  Such  arguments  as 
Tertullian's  It  is  credible  because  it  is  absurd,  it 
is  certain  because  it  is  impossible,  would  have  been 
regarded  as  worse  than  useless  in  reasoning  with 
philosophers."  The  Alexandrine  Universalists  met 
philosophers  and  scholars  on  their  own  ground  and 
conquered  them  with  their  own  weapons.  Under 
God,  the  agency  that  gave  Christianity  its  standing 
and  wonderful  progress  during  the  first  three  centu- 
ries, was  the  Catechetical  school  of  Alexandria,  and 
the  saintly  scholars  and  Christian  philosophers  who 
immortalized  the  famous  city  that  was  the  scene  of 
their  labors.  They  met  and  surpassed  the  apostles 
of  culture,  and  proved  at  the  very  beginning  that 
Christianity  is  no  less  the  religion  of  the  wise 
and  learned  than  of  the  unlettered  and  simple.  The 
Universalist  Church  has  never  sufficiently  recalled 
and  celebrated  the  great  labors  and  marvelous  suc- 
cesses of  their  progenitors  in  the  primitive  years  of 
Christianity. 

"Those  who   are   truly  called   the   fathers  and 


no     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

founders  of  the  Christian  church  were  not  the  simple- 
minded  fishermen  of  Galilee,  but  men 
The  Alexandrine       who  had  received  the  highest  educa- 
Teachers.  tion  which  could  be  obtained  at  the 

time,  that  is  Greek  education.  *  *  * 
In  Alexandria,  at  that  time  the  very  center  of  the 
world,  it  had  either  to  vanquish  the  world  or  to  vanish. 
*  *  *  Christianity  came  no  doubt  from  the  small 
room  in  the  house  of  Mary,  where  many  were  gath- 
ered together  praying,  but  as  early  as  the  Second 
Century  it  became  a  very  different  Christianity  in  the 
Catechetical  school  of  Alexandria,  *  *  *  What 
Clement  had  most  at  heart  was  not  the  letter  but  the 
spirit,  not  the  historical  events,  but  their  deeper 
meaning  in  universal  history."^ 

MiJLLER  points  out  the  fact  that  the  Alexandrine 
'  'current  of  Christian  thought  was  never  entirely  lost, 
but   rose  to  the   surface  again   and 
Max  MuUer's  again  at  the  most  critical  periods  in 

Words.  the  history  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Unchecked  by  the  Council  of  Nicaea, 
A.  D.  325,  that  ancient  stream  of  philosophical  and 
religious  thought  flows  on,  and  we  can  hear  the  dis- 
tant echoes  of  Alexandria  in  the  writings  of  St.  Ba- 
sil (A.  D.  329-379),  Gregory  of  Nyssa  (A.  D.  332- 
395),  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  (A.  D.  328-389),  as  well 
as  in  the  works  of  St.  Augustine  (A.  D.  364-430)." 

The  reader  of  the  history  of  those  times  cannot 
help  deploring  the  subsequent  siibstitution  of  Latin 
Augustinianism  and  its  long  train  of  errors  and  evils 
for  Greek  Alexandrianism,  nor  can  the  Christian  stu- 

«Max  Miiller,  Theosophy  or  Psychological  Religion,  Lecture  XIII. 


PANTiENUS  AND  CLEMENT.  in 

dent  avoid  wishing  that  the  Alexandrine  Christians 
could  have  been  permitted  to  transmit  their  benefi- 
cent principles  uncorrupted.  How  different  would 
have  been  the  Middle  Ages!  How  far  beyond  its 
present  condition  would  be  the  Christendom  of  today ! 
Clement  of  Alexandria. 

Titus  Flavius  Clemens,  Clemens  Alexandri- 
Nus,  or  Clement  of  Alexandria — born  A.  D.  150, 
died  A.  D.  220 — was  reared  in  heathenism.  Before 
his  conversion  to  Christianity  he  had  been  thor- 
oughly educated  in  Hellenic  literature  and  philoso- 
phy. It  is  uncertain  whether  he  was  born  in  Athens 
or  Alexandria.  He  became  a  Christian  early  in  his 
adult  years;  was  presbyter  in  the  church  in  Alexan- 
dria, and  in  189  he  succeeded  Pant^nus  as  president 
of  the  celebrated  Catechetical  school  in  Alexandria. 
During  the  persecution  by  Septimius  Severus  in  202 
he  fled,  and  was  in  Jerusalem  in  211.  He  never  re- 
turned to  Alexandria,  but  died  about  220.  This  is 
all  that  is  known  of  his  life. 

He  was  the  father  of  the  Alexandrine  Christian 
Philosophy,  or  ancient  Philosophical  Christianity. 
Many  of  his  works  have  perished ;  the  principal  ones 
that  survive  are  his  "  Exhortation  to  the  Heathen," 
the  "  Teacher,"  or  "  Pedagogue, "  and  "Stromata," 
or  "  Miscellanies,"  literally  "  Tapestries,"  or  freely 
translated  "Carpet  Bag. "^ 

It  is  the  verdict  of  scholars  that  Clement's  "  Stro- 
mata" is  the  greatest  of  all  the  Christian  apologies 

'The  edition  of  Clemens  used  in  preparing  this  work  Is  Bibliotheca 
Sacra  Patrum  Bcclesiae  Grfficorum,  Pars.  HI.  Titi  Flaui  Clementis  Alex- 
andrini  Opera  Omnia  Tom.  I,  IV.  Recognouit  Reinholdus  Klotz.  Lipsise, 
Sumptibus,  E.  B.  Schwickerti,  1, 182.    Also  Migne's  Patrologiae. 


112    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

except  Origen's.  It  starts  "from  the  essential  affin- 
ity between  man  and  God,  (and)  goes  on  to  show- 
how,  in  Christianity,  we  have  the  complete  restora- 
tion of  the  normal  relation  between  the  creature  and 
the  Creator." 

The  influence  of  the  Greek  philosophers,  and  es- 
pecially of  Plato,  on  the  Alexandrine  fathers,  is  con- 
ceded.^ Clement  held  that  the  true  Gnostic  was  the 
perfect  Christian.  The  Alexandrine  fathers  had  no 
hostility  to  the  word  Gnostic,  properly  imderstood; 
to  them  it  signified  the  Christian  who  brings  reason 
and  philosophy  to  bear  on  his  faith,  in  contradistinc- 
tion from  the  ignorant  believer.  Iren^eus  had  de- 
clared "genuine  gnosis,"  or  Gnosticism,  to  be  "the 
doctrine  of  the  apostles,"  insisting  on  "  the  plenary 
use  of  Scripture,  admitting  neither  addition  nor  cur- 
tailment, and  the  reading  of  Scripture,  and  legiti- 
mate and  diligent  preaching,  according  to  the  word 
of  God."  And  Justin  had  bequeathed  to  the  Alex- 
andrine school  the  central  truth  that  the  Divine 
Word  is  in  the  germ  in  every  human  being.  This 
great  fact  was  never  lost  sight  of,  but  was  more  and 
more  developed  by  the  three  great  teachers — Pan- 
TyENUs,  Clement  and  Origen. 

The  materialistic  philosophy  of  Epicureanism, 
that  happiness  is  the  highest  good  and  can  best  be 
procured  in  a  well-regulated  enjoyment  of  the  pleas- 


8Norton's  Statement  of  Reasons,  pp,  94,  95;  Cudworth;  Brucker. 

The  extent  to  which  early  Cliristians  appealed  to  the  Pagan  philosophers 
may  be  gauged  from  the  fact  that  in  Origen  thirty-five  allusions  are  made  to 
the  Stoics,  six  to  the  Epicureans,  fifteen  tothe  Platonists,  and  six  to  the 
Pythagoreans;  in  Tertullian  five  to  the  Stoics  and  five  to  the  Epicureans;  ia 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  repeatedly.  Huidekoper's  Indirect  Testimony  to 
the  Gospels. 


PANT^NUS  AND  CLEMENT.  113 

ures  of  life;  the  Pantheistic  system  of  Stoicism, 
that  one  should  live  within  himself, 
Clement's  superior   to   the    accidents  of   time; 

Philosophy.  the  logical  Aristotelianism,  and  the 

Platonism  that  regarded  the  universe 
as  the  work  of  a  Supreme  Spirit,  in  which  man  is  a 
permanent  individuality  possessing  a  spark  of  the 
divinity  that  would  ultimately  purify  him  and  elevate 
him  to  a  higher  life;  and  that  virtue  would  acceler- 
ate and  sin  retard  his  upward  progress — these  differ- 
ent systems  all  had  their  votaries,  but  the  noblest  of 
all,  the  Platonic,  was  most  influential  with  the  Alex- 
andrine fathers,  though,  like  Clement,  they  exercised 
a  wise  and  rational  eclecticism,  in  adopting  the  best 
features  of  each  system.  This  Clement  claimed  to 
do.  He  says:  "  And  by  philosophy  I  mean  not  the 
Stoic,  nor  the  Platonic,  nor  the  Epicurean,  nor  that 
of  Aristotle ;  but  whatever  any  of  these  sects  had  said 
that  was  fit  and  just,  that  taught  righteousness  with 
a  divine  and  religious  knowledge,  this  I  call  eclectic 
philosophy."^ 

Matters  of  speculation  he  solved  by  philosophy, 
but  his  theology  he  derived  from  the  Scriptures. 
He  was  not,  therefore,  a  mere  philosopher,  but  one 
who  used  philosophy  as  a  help  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  religion  of  Christ.  He  says;  "We  wait  for  no 
human  testimony,  but  bring  proof  of  what  we  assert 
from  the  Word  of  the  Lord,  which  is  the  most  trust- 
worthy, or,  rather,  the  only  evidence." 

The  thoroughly  Greek  mind  of  Clement,  with  his 
great  imagination,  vast  learning  and  research,  splen- 

sStrom.  i;7. 


114     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

did  ability,  and  divine  spirit,  could  scarcely  misin- 
terpret or  misunderstand  the  New  Testament  Scrip- 
tures, written  as  they  were  in  his  mother  tongue, 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  believe  with  Bunsen,  that  in 
this  seat  and  center  of  Christian  culture  and  Chris- 
tian learning,  he  became  ' '  the  first  Christian  philoso- 
pher of  the  history  of  mankind.  He  believed  in  a 
universal  plan  of  a  divine  education  of  the  human 
race.  *  *  *  This  is  the  grand  position  occupied 
by  Clemens,  the  Alexandrian,  in  the  history  of  the 
church  and  of  mankind  and  the  key  to  his  doctrine 
about  God  and  his  word,  Christ  and  his  spirit,  God 
and  man.  *  *  *  A  profound  respect  for  the  piety 
and  holiness  of  Clemens  is  as  imiversal  in  the  an- 
cient church  as  for  his  learning  and  eloquence.  I 
rejoice  to  find  that  Reinkins,  a  Roman  Catholic,  ex- 
presses his  regret,  not  to  say  indignation,  that  this 
holy  man  and  writer,  the  object  of  the  unmixed  ad- 
miration of  the  ancient  Christian,  should  have  been 
struck  out  of  the  catalogue  of  saints  by  Benedict 
XIV.  "10 

When  Clement,   wrote   Christian   doctrine    was 

passing  from  oral  tradition  to  written  definition,  and 

he    avers  when    setting    forth    the 

.^      .,.     „   .   .   Christian  religion,  that  he  is  "repro- 
A  Transition  Period.         .  ,    .  . 

ducmg  an  ongmal,  unwritten  tradi- 
tion," which  he  learned  from  a 
disciple  of  the  apostles.  This  had  been  communi- 
cated by  the  Lord  to  the  apostles,  Peter  and  James 
and  John  and  Paul,  and  handed  down  from  father 
to    son    till,    at    length,    Clement    set    forth    accu- 

wHipp.  and  His  Age,  I. 


PANT^NUS  AND  CLEMENT.  115 

rately  in  writing-,  what  had  been  before  deliv- 
ered orally.  We  can,  therefore,  scarcely  hope  to 
find  unadulterated  Christianity  anywhere  out  of  the 
New  Testament,  if  not  in  the  writings  of  Clement. 
Max  MiJLLER  (Theosophy  or  Psychological  Religion, 
Preface,  p.  xiv)  declares  that  Clement,  having  been 
born  in  the  middle  of  the  Second  Century,  may  pos- 
sibly have  known  Papias.  or  some  of  his  friends 
who  knew  the  apostles,  and  therefore  he  was  most 
competent  to  represent  the  teachings  of  Christ. 
Farrar  writes:  "There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
after  the  date  of  the  Clementine  Recognitions, 
and  unceasingly  during  the  close  of  the  third  and 
during  the  fourth  and  following  centuries,  the  ab- 
stract idea  of  endlessness  was  deliberately  faced,  and 
from  imperfect  acquaintance  with  the  meaning  and 
history  of  the  word  aionios  it  was  "used  by  many 
writers  as  though  it  were  identical  in  meaning  with 
aidios  or  endless. "  Which  is  to  say  that  ignorance  of 
the  real  meaning  of  the  word  on  the  part  of  those 
who  were  not  familiar  with  Greek,  subverted  the 
current  belief  in  universal  restoration,  cherished,  as 
we  shall  directly  show,  by  Clement  and  the  Alexan- 
drine Christians. 

Passages  from  the  works  of  Clement,  only  a  few 
of  which  we  quote,  will  sufficiently  establish  the  fact 

that  he  taught  universal  restoration. 
Clement's  "For   all   things  are   ordered   both 

Language.  universally  and  in  particular  by  the 

Lord  of  the  universe,  with  a  view  to 
the  salvation  of  the  universe.  *  *  *  But  needful 
corrections,  by  the  goodness  of  the  great,  overseeing 
judge,  through  the  attendant  angels,  through  various 


Ii6     UNIVEKSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

prior  judgments,  through  the  final  judgment,  com- 
pel even  those  who  have  become  more  callous  to  re- 
pent." "So  he  saves  all;  but  some  he  converts  by 
penalties,  others  who  follow  him  of  their  own  will, 
and  in  accordance  with  the  worthiness  of  his  honor, 
that  every  knee  may  be  bent  to  him  of  celestial,  ter- 
restrial and  infernal  things  (Phil,  ii:  lo),  that  is  an- 
gels, men,  and  souls  who  before  his  advent  migrated 
from  this  mortal  life."  "For  there  are  partial  cor- 
rections {padciai)  which  are  called  chastisements 
[kolaseis),  which  many  of  us  who  have  been  in  trans- 
gression incur  by  falling  away  from  the  Lord's  peo- 
ple. But  as  children  are  chastised  by  their  teacher, 
or  their  father,  so  are  we  by  Providence.  But  God 
does  not  ^unish.{tinioriaita),iov  punishment  {tiniorid) 
is  retaliation  for  evil.  He  chastises,  however,  for 
good  to  those  who  are  chastised  collectively  and  indi- 
vidually."^^ 

This  important  passage  is  very  instructive  in  the 
light  it  sheds  on  the  usage  of  Greek  words.  The 
word  from  which  "  corrections  "  is  rendered  is  the 
same  as  that  in  Hebrews  xii:  9,  "correction" 
"chastening"  {paidcid)\  "chastisement"  is  from 
kolasis  ,  translated  punishment  in  Matt,  xxv:  46, 
and  "punishment"  is  timoria^  with  which  Josephus 
defines  punishment,  but  a  word  our  Lord  never  em- 
ploys, and  which  Clement  declares  that  God  never 

"Strom,  VII,  ii;  Pedag.  I,  8;  on  I  John  ii,  2;  Comments  on  sed  etiam  pro 
totoniundo,  etc.  ("Proinde  universos  quidem  salvat,  sed  alios  per  supplicia 
convertens,  alios  autem  spontanea,  assequentes,  voluntate;  et  cum  honoris 
dignitate  (Phil,  ii,  10)  ut  omne  genu  flectatur  ei,  caelestium,  terrestrium  et 
infernorum;  hoc  est  angeli,  homines,  et  animae  quae  ante  adventum  ejus 
de  hac  vita  migravere  temporali.")    Strom.  VII,  16. 


PANT^NUS  AND  CLEMENT.  117 

inflicts.  This  agrees  with  the  uniform  contention  of 
Universalist  scholars. 

"The  divine  nature  is  not  angry  but  is  at  the 
farthest  from  it,  for  it  is  an  excellent  artifice  to 
frighten  in  order  that  we  may  not  sin.  *  *  *  Noth- 
ing is  hated  by  God.''^^  So  that  even  iiaionios  meant 
endless  duration,  Clement  would  argue  that  it  was 
used  pedagogically — to  restrain  the  sinner.  It  should 
be  said,  however,  that  Clement  rarely  uses  aionion 
in  connection  with  suffering. 

Clement  insists  that  punishment  in  Hades  is  re- 
medial and  restorative,  and  that  punished  souls  are 
cleansed  by  fire.  The  fire  is  spiritual,  purifying  ^  the 
soul.  "  God's  punishments  are  saving  and  disciplinary 
(in  Hades)  leading  to  conversion,  and  choosing  rather 
the  repentance  than  the  death  of  the  sinner,  (  Ezek. 
xviii,  23,  32;  xxxiii:  11,  etc. ,)  and  especially  since 
souls,  although  darkened  by  passions,  when  released 
from  their  bodies,  are  able  to  perceive  more  clearly 
because  of  their  being  no  longer  obstructed  by  the 
paltry  flesh,  "i* 

He  again  defines  the  important  word  kolasis  our 
Lord  uses  in  Matt,  xxv :  46,  and  shows  how  it  differs 
from  the  wholly  different  word  timoria  used  by  Jo- 
sephus  and  the  Greek  writers  who  believed  in  irreme- 
diable suffering.  He  says:  "  He  (God)  chastises  the 
disobedient,  for  chastisement  (kolasis)  is  for  the  good 
and  advantage  of  him  who  is  punished,  for  it  is  the 
amendment  of  one  who  resists ;  I  will  not  grant  that 
he  wishes  to  take  vengeance.  Vengeance  {timoria)  is  a 

i2Paed  I,  viii. 

^^IIup  (ftpovL/JiOV-    Strom.  VII,  vi, 

"VI,  vi;  VII.  xvi;  VI,  xiv;  VII,  ii. 


Ii8     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

requital  of  evil  sent  for  the  interest  of  the  avenger.  He 
(God)  would  not  desire  to  avenge  himself  on  us  who 
teaches  us  to  pray  for  those  who  despitefully  use  us 
(Matt,  v:  44).^^  *  *  *  Therefore  the  good  God  punishes 
for  these  three  causes:  First,  that  he  who  is  pun- 
ished {paidenomenos)  may  become  better  than  his 
former  self;  then  that  those  who  are  capable  of  being 
saved  by  examples  may  be  drawn  back,  being  ad- 
monished; and  thirdly,  that  he  who  is  injured  may 
not  readily  be  despised,  and  be  apt  to  receive  injury. 
And  there  are  two  methods  of  correction,  the  in- 
structive and  the  punitive,  ^^  which  we  have  called 
the  disciplinary." 

The  English  reader  of  the  translations  of  the 
Greek  fathers  is  misled  by  the  indiscriminate  render- 
ing of  different  Greek  words  into  "punish."  Ti- 
moria  should  always  be  translated  ' '  vengeance, "  or 
"torment;"  kolasis,  "punishment,"  and  paideia 
"  chastisement,"  or  "correction." 

"  If  in  this  life  there  are  so  many  ways  for  purifi- 
cation and  repentance,  how  much  more  should  there 
be  after  death!  The  purification  of  souls,  when  sep- 
arated from  the  body,  will  be  easier.  We  can  set  no 
limits  to  the  agency  of  the  Redeemer;  to  redeem,  to 
rescue,  to  discipline,  is  his  work,  and  so  will  he  con- 
tinue to  operate  after  this  life. "  ^^ 

Clement  did  not  deem  it  well  to  express  himself 
more  fully  and  frequently  respecting  this  point  of 
doctrine,  because  he  considered  it  a  part  of  the 
Gnostic  or  esoteric  knowledge  which  it  might  not  be 


'^Poedag.  I,  viii. 
"Strom.  IV,  xxiv. 
"Quoted  by  Neander. 


PANT^NUS  AND  CLEMENT.  119 

well  for  the  unenlightened  to  hear  lest  it  should  re- 
sult in  the  injury  of  the  ignorant;  hence  he  says: 
"  As  to  the  rest  I  am  silent  and  praise  the  Lord." 
He  "  fears  to  set  down  in  writing  what  he  would  not 
venture  to  read  aloud. "  He  thinks  this  knowledge 
not  useful  for  all,  and  that  the  fear  of  hell  may  keep 
sinners  from  sin.  And  yet  he  can  not  resist  declar- 
ing: "And  how  is  he  Savior  and  Lord  and  not 
Savior  and  Lord  of  all?  But  he  (Christ)  is  the 
Savior  of  those  who  have  believed,  because  of  their 
wishing  to  know,  and  of  those  who  have  not  believed 
he  is  Lord,  until  by  being  brought  to  confess  him 
they  shall  receive  the  proper  and  well-adapted  bless- 
ing for  themselves  which  comes  by  him. " 

This  extension  of  the  day  of  grace  through  eter- 
nity is  also  expressed  in  the  ' '  Exhortation  to  the 
Heathen  "  (ix) :  "For  great  is  the  grace  of  his  prom- 
ise, '  if  today  we  hear  his  voice. '  And  that  today  is 
lengthened  out  day  by  day,  while  it  is  called  today. 
And  to  the  end  the  today  and  the  instruction  continue ; 
and  then  the  true  today,  the  never  ending  day  of 
God,  extends  over  eternity. "  His  reference  to  the 
resurrection  shows  that  he  regarded  it  as  deliver- 
ance from  the  ills  of  this  state  of  being.  Before  the 
final  state  of  perfection  the  purifying  fire  which 
makes  wise  ^^^ill  separate  errors  from  the  soul;  the 
purgating  punishment  will  heal  and  cure. 

Alexander,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  wrote  to  Ori- 
GEN  on  the  death  of  Clement,  says  Eusebius,  "for  we 
know  these  blessed  fathers  who  have  gone  before  us 
and  with  whom  we  shall  shortly  be,  I  mean  Pantae- 
nus,  truly  blessed  and  my  master;  and  the  sacred 
Clement,  who  was  my  master  and  profitable  to  me. " 


120     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

This  passage  would  indicate  the  fraternity  of  feeling 
between  these  three,  and  seems  to  show  that  there 
was  no  suspicion  of  the  heresy  of  the  others  on  the 
part  of  Alexander. 

Clement  distinctly  shows  that  the  perversion  of 
the  truth  so  long  taught,  that  the  coming  of  Christ 
placated  ■  the  Father,  had  no  place 
Further  Words  in  primitive  Christianity.  He  says: 
of  Clement.  God   is  good  on  his    own    account, 

and  just  also  on  ours,  and  he  is  just 
because  he  is  good,  *  *  *  for  before  he  became 
Creator  he  was  God.  He  was  good.  And  therefore 
he  wished  to  be  Creator  and  Father.  And  the 
nature  of  that  love  was  the  source  of  righteousness; 
the  cause  too  of  his  lighting  up  his  sun,  and  sending 
down  his  own  son.  *  *  *  The  feeling  of  an- 
ger (if  it  is  proper  to  call  his  admonition  anger)  is 
full  of  love  to  man,  God  condescending  to  emotion 
on  man's  account,  etc.     (Paed.  I,  lo.     Strom.  I,  27.) 

He  represents  that  God  is  never  angry ;  he  hates 
sin  with  unlimited  hatred,  but  loves  the  sinner  with 
illimitable  love.  His  omnipotence  is  directed  by  om- 
niscience and  can  and  will  overcome  all  evil  and 
transform  it  to  good.  His  threats  and  punishments 
have  but  one  purpose,  and  that  the  good  of  the  pun- 
ished. Hereafter  those  who  have  here  remained  ob- 
durate will  be  chastened  until  converted.  Man's 
freedom  will  never  be  lost,  and  ultimately  it  will 
be  converted  in  the  last  and  wickedest  sinner. 

Fire  is  an  emblem  of  the  divine  punishments 
which  purify  the  bad.^^  "Punishment  is,  in  its  opera- 

^8ia  7ri)/30S  KaOapaiv  twv  kukms- 


PANTyENUS  AND  CLEMENT.  I2i 

tion,  like  medicine;  it  dissolves  the  hard  heart, 
purges  away  the  filth  of  uncleanness,  and  reduces 
the  swellings  of  pride  and  haughtiness;  thus  restor- 
ing its  subject  to  a  sound  and  healthful  state." 

• '  The  Lord  is  the  propitiation,  not  only  for  our 
sins,  that  is  of  the  faithful,  but  also  for  the  whole 
world  (i  John  ii:  2);  therefore  he  truly  saves  all, 
converting  some  by  punishments,  and  others  by 
gaining  their  free  will,  so  that  he  has  the  high  honor 
that  unto  him  every  knee  should  bow,  angels,  men 
and  the  souls  of  those  who  died  before  his  advent." 
That  the  foregoing  passages  from  Clement  dis- 
tinctly state  the  sublime  sentiments  we  have  sup- 
posed them  to  express,  will  fully  appear  from  those 
who  have  made  the  most  careful  study  of  his  opin- 
ions, and  whose  interpretations  are  unprejudiced  and 
just.  Says  one  of  the  most  thoughtful  of  modern 
writers,  the  candid  Hagenbach: 

"The  works  of  Clement,  in  particular,  abound 
with  passages  referring  to  the  love  and  mercy  of 
God.  He  loves  men  because  they  are  kindred  with 
God.  God's  love  follows  men,  seeks  them  out,  as 
the  bird  the  young  that  has  fallen  from  its  nest."^^ 

Clement,  like  Tertullian,  denied  original  de- 
pravity, and  held  that  '  'man  now  stands  in  the  same 
relation  to  the  tempter  in  which  Adam  stood  before 
the  Fall. "  Clement's  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection 
was  like  that  of  Paul  ;  it  is  not  a  mere  rising  from 
death,  but  a  standing  up  higher,  in  a  greater  full- 
ness of  life,  and  a  better  life,  as  the  word  anastasis 
properly  signifies. 


i^Christian  Doct.,  Period  I.  Sec.  39. 


122     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

ALLENinhis  valuable  work,  "Continuity  of  Chris- 
tian Thought,"  epitomizes  the  teachings  of  Clement 
in  language  that  describes  the  Uni- 

.„    ,    ^   ,        ,     versalistic  contention.    "The    judg- 
AUen's  Statement.  .  .       .  ,      r-      , 

ment  is  not  conceived  as  the  final  as- 
size of  the  universe  in  some  remote 
future,  but  as  a  present,  continuous  element  in  the 
process  of  human  education.  The  purpose  of  the 
judgment,  as  of  all  the  divine  penalties,  is  always 
remedial.  Judgment  enters  into  the  work  of  re- 
demption as  a  constructive  factor.  God  does  not 
teach  in  order  that  he  may  finally  judge,  but  he 
judges  in  order  that  he  may  teach.  The  censures, 
the  punishments,  the  judgments  of  God  are  a  neces- 
sary element  of  the  educational  process  in  the  life  of 
humanity,  and  the  motive  which  underlies  them  is 
goodness  and  love.  *  *  *  The  idea  of  life  as  an 
education  under  the  immediate  superintendence  of  a 
Divine  instructor  who  is  God  himself  indwelling  in 
the  world,  constitutes  the  central  truth  in  Clement's 
theology.  *  *  *  There  is  no  necessity  that  God 
should  be  reconciled  with  humanity,  for  there  is  no 
schism  in  the  divine  nature  between  love  and  justice 
which  needs  to  be  overcome  before  love  can  go  forth 
in  free  and  full  forgiveness.  The  idea  that  justice 
and  love  are  distinct  attributes  of  God,  differing 
widely  in  their  operation,  is  regarded  by  Clement 
as  having  its  origin  in  a  mistaken  conception  of  their 
nature.  Justice  and  love  are  in  reality  the  same  at- 
tribute, or,  to  speak  from  the  point  of  view  which 
distinguishes  them,  God  is  most  loving  when  he  is 
most  just,  and  most  just  when  he  is  most  loving. 
*     *     *     God  works  all  things  up  to  what  is  better. 


PANT^NUS  AND  CLEMENT.  123 

Clement  would  not  tolerate  the  thought  that  any  soul 
would  continue  forever  to  resist  the  force  of  redeem- 
ing love.  Somehow  and  somewhere  in  the  long  run 
of  ages,  that  love  must  prove  weightier  than  sin  and 
death,  and  vindicate  its  power  in  one  universal  tri- 
umph." 

One  of  the  best  modern  statements  of  the  views 
of  the  Alexandrine  fathers  is  given  by  Bigg  in  Chris- 
tian Platonists,    pp.  75,89,112:    Cle- 
ment regarded  the  object  of  kolasis 
Bigg  on  Clement.  .   ,         r  -.j  j    ^  1 

as  "threefold;  amendment,  example, 

and  protection  of  the  weak.  Strom, 
i:  26,  168;  iv:24,  154;  vi:i2,  99.  The  distinction  be- 
tween kolasis  and  timoria,  Strom.  iv:i4,  153;  Paed. 
i:8,  70,  the  latter  is  the  rendering  of  evil  for  evil 
and  this  is  not  the  desire  of  God.  Both  kolasis  and 
timoria  are  spoken  of  in  Strom.  v:i4,  90,  but  this  is 
not  to  be  pressed,  for  in  Strom.  vi:i4,  109,  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  words  is  dropped  and  both  signify 
purgatorial  chastisement.  *  *  *  Fear  he  has 
handled  in  the  truly  Christian  spirit.  It  is  not  the 
fear  of  the  slave  who  hates  his  master;  it  is  the  rever- 
ence of  a  child  for  its  father,  of  a  citizen  for  the  good 
magistrate.  Tertullian,  an  African  and  a  lawyer, 
dwells  with  fierce  satisfaction  on  terrible  visions  of 
torment.  The  cultivated  Greek  shrinks  not  only 
from  the  gross  materialism  of  such  a  picture,  but  from 
the  idea  of  retribution  which  it  implies.  He  is  never 
tired  of  repeating  that  justice  is  but  another  name  for 
mercy.  Chastisement  is  not  to  be  dreaded  but  to  be 
embraced. "  *  *  *  Here  or  hereafter  God's  desire  is 
not  vengeance  but  correction.  Though  Clement's 
view  of  man's  destiny  is  called  restorationism(«/(?>^«/«^- 


124     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

tasis)  it  was  "not  as  the  restitution  of  that  which  was 
lost  at  the  Fall,  but  as  the  crown  and  consummation 
of  the  destiny  of  man  leading  to  a  righteousness  such 
as  Adam  never  knew,  and  to  heights  of  glory  and 
power  as  yet  unsealed  and  undreamed.  *  *  * 
His  books  are  in  many  ways  the  most  valuable  mon- 
ument of  the  early  church ;  the  more  precious  to  all 
intelligent  students  because  he  lived,  not  like  Origen, 
in  the  full  stream  of  events,  but  in  a  quiet  backwater 
where  primitive  thoughts  and  habits  lingered  longer 
than  elsewhere."  "Clement  had  no  enemies  in  life 
orm  death."  The  great  effort  of  Clement  and  Ori- 
gen seems  to  have  been  to  reconcile  the  revelation 
of  God  in  Christ  with  the  older  revelation  of  God  in 
nature. 

Says  De  Pressense:  "  That  which  strikes  us  in 
Clement  is  his  serenity.  We  feel  that  he  himself 
enjoys  that  deep  and  abiding  peace  which  he  urges 
the  Corinthians  to  seek.  It  is  impressed  on  every 
page  he  writes,  while  his  thoughts  flow  on  like  a 
broad  and  quiet  stream,  never  swelling  into  a  full 
impetuous  tide.  *  *  *  We  feel  that  this  man 
has  a  great  love  for  Jesus  Christ. "  Compare,  con- 
trast rather,  his  serenity  and  peacefulness  with  the 
stormy  tempestuousness  of  Tertullian,  his  "narrow 
and  passionate  realism, "  and  we  see  a  demonstration 
of  the  power  and  beauty  of  the  Restorationist 
faith. 

Frederick  Denison  Maurice  declares  •}^  "I  do  not 

s^Lectures  on  theEcc.  Hist,  of  the  First  and  Second  Centuries,  pp.  230- 


PANTvENUS  AND  CLEMENT.  125 

know  where  we  shall  look  for  a  purer  or  a  truer  man 
than  this  Clemens  of  Alexandria. 
Frederick  Denison  *  *  *  He  seems  to  me  that  one 
Maurice's  Eulogy,  of  the  old  fathers  whom  we  should 
all  have  reverenced  most  as  a  teacher, 
and  loved  best  as  a  friend. " 

Baur  remarks;  "Alexandria,  the  birthplace  of 
Gnosticism,  is  also  the  birthplace  of  Christian  theol- 
ogy, which  in  fact  in  its  earliest  forms,  aimed  at  be- 
ing nothing  but  a  Christian  Gnosticism.  Among  the 
fathers,  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Origen  stand 
nearest  to  the  Gnostics.  They  rank  gnosis  (knowl- 
edge) aboYQ pistis  (faith),  and  place  the  two  in  such 
an  immanent  relation  to  one  another  that  neither 
can  exist  without  the  other.  Thus  they  adopt  the 
same  point  of  view  as  the  Gnostics.  It  is  their  aim, 
by  drawing  into  their  service  all  that  the  philosophy 
of  the  age  could  contribute,  to  interpret  Christianity 
in  its  historical  connection,  and  to  take  up  its  sub- 
ject-matter into  their  thinking  consciousness."" 

A  candid  historian  observes:  "Clemens  may,  per- 
haps, be  esteemed  the  most  profoundly  learned  of 
the  fathers  of  the  church.  A  keen  desire  for  infor- 
mation had  prompted  him  to  explore  the  regions  of 
universal  knowledge,  to  dive  into  the  mysteries  of 
Paganism,  and  to  dwell  upon  the  abstruser  doctrines 
of  Holy  Writ.  His  works  are  richly  stored  and  vari- 
egated with  illustrations  and  extracts  from  the  poets 
and  philosophers  with  whose  sentiments  he  was  fa- 
miliarly acquainted.  He  lays  open  the  curiosities  of 
history,  the  secrets  of  motley  superstitions,   and  the 

siChurch  Hist.  First  Three  Centuries. 


126    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

reveries  of  speculative  wanderers,  at  the  same  time 
that  he  develops  the  cast  of  opinions  and  peculiari- 
ties of  discipline  which  distinguished  the  members 
of  the  Christian  state."  22 

Daille  writes:  "It  is  manifest  throughout  his 
works  that  Clement  thought  all  the  punishments  that 
God  inflicts  upon  men  are  salutary.  Of  this  kind  he 
reckons  the  torments  which  the  damned  in  hell  suf- 
fer. *  *  *  Clemens  was  of  the  same  opinion  as 
his  scholar  Origen,  who  everywhere  teaches  that  all 
the  punishments  of  those  in  hell  are  purgatorial, 
that  they  are  not  endless,  but  will  at  length  cease 
when  the  damned  are  sufficiently  purified  by  the 
fire.  "23 

Farrar  gives  Clement's  views,  and  shows  that 
the  great  Alexandrian  really  anticipated  substan- 
tially the  thought  for  which  our  church  has  con- 
tended for  a  century : 

"There  are  very  few  of  the  Christian  fathers 
whose  fundamental  conceptions  are  better  suited  to 
correct  the  narrowness,  the  rigidity  and  the  formal- 
ism of  Latin  theology.  *  *  *  It  is  his  lofty  and 
wholesome  doctrine  that  man  is  made  in  the  image 
of  God ;  that  man's  will  is  free ;  that  he  is  redeemed 
from  sin  by  a  divine  education  and  a  corrective  disci- 
pline ;  that  fear  and  punishment  are  but  remedial  in- 
struments in  man's  training;  that  Justice  is  but  an- 
other aspect  of  perfect  Love ;  that  the  physical  world 
is  good  and  not  evil ;  that  Christ  is  a  Living  not  a 


32Hist.  Christ.  Church,  Second  and  Third  Centuries,  Jeremie.p,  38. 

2*Hom.  VI.,  4,  in  Exod.  Qui  salvus  fit  per  ignem  salvus  fit,  ut,  si  quid 
forte  de  specie  plumbi  habuerit  admixtum,  id  ignis  decoquat  et  resolvat,  ut 
efficiantur  omnes  aurum  purum. 


PANT^NUS  AND  CLEMENT.  127 

Dead  Christ ;  that  all  mankind  form  one  great  broth- 
erhood in  him ;  that  salvation  is  an  ethical  process, 
not  an  external  reward;  that  the  atonement  was  not 
the  pacification  of  wrath,  but  the  revelation  of  God's 
eternal  mercy.  *  *  *  That  judgment  is  a  con- 
tinuous process,  not  a  single  sentence;  that  God 
works  all  things  up  to  what  is  better ;  that  souls  may 
be  purified  beyond  the  grave. " 

Lamson  says  that  Clement  declares:  "Punish- 
ment, as  Plato  taught,  is  remedial,  and  soiils  are  ben- 
efited by  it  by  being  amended.  Far  from  being  in- 
compatible with  God's  goodness  it  is  a  striking  proof 
of  it.  For  punishment  is  for  the  good  and  benefit 
of  himwho  is  punished.  It  is  the  bringing  back  to 
rectitude  of  that  which  has  swerved  from  it."^^ 

It  may  be  stated  that  neither  original  sin,  deprav- 
ity, infant  guilt  and  damnation,  election,  vicarious 
atonement,  and  endless  punishment  as  the  penalty  of 
human  sin,  in  fact,  "none  of  the  individual  doctrines 
or  tenets  which  have  so  long  been  the  object  of  dis- 
like and  animadversion  to  the  modern  theological 
mind  formed  any  constituent  part  in  Greek  theol- 
Qg-y  "  25  They  were  abhorrent  to  Clement,  Origen, 
and  their  associates. 

The  views  held  by  Clement  and  taught  by  his 
predecessor,  Pant^nus,  and,  as  seems  apparent, 
by  Anathegoras  and  his  predecessors  back  to  the 
apostles  themselves,  and  by  their  successor  Origen, 
and,  as  will  appear  on  subsequent  pages  by  others 
down  to  Didymus,    (A.   D.  395),   the  last  president 


2*Church  of  the  First  Three  Centuries,  p.  158. 
s^Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,  p.  19. 


128     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

of  the  greatest  theological  school  of  the  Second  and 
Third  Centuries,  were  substantially  those  taught  by 
the  Universalist  church  of  today,  so  far  as  they  in- 
cluded the  character  of  God,  the  nature  and  final 
destiny  of  mankind,  the  effect  of  the  resurrection, 
the  judgment,  the  nature  and  end  of  punishment, 
and  other  cognate  themes.  In  fact  Clement  stands 
on  the  subject  of  God's  purpose  and  plan,  and  man's 
ultimate  destiny,  as  substantially  a  representative  of 
the  Universalist  church  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
as  well  as  a  type  of  ancient  scholarship. 


X. 

ORIGEN. 

Origen  Adamantius  was  born  of  Christian  pa- 
rents, in  Alexandria,  A.  D.  185.  He  was  early 
taught  the  Christian  religion,  and  when  a  mere  boy 
could  recite  long  passages  of  Scripture  from  memory. 
During  the  persecution  by  Septimus  Severus,  A.  D. 
202,  his  father,  Leonides,  was  imprisoned,  and  the 
son  wrote  to  him  not  to  deny  Christ  out  of  tenderness 
for  his  family,  and  was  only  prevented  from  surren- 
dering himself  to  voluntary  martyrdom  by  his  mother, 
who  secreted  his  clothes.  Leonides  died  a  martyr. 
In  the  year  203,  then  but  eighteen  years  of  age,  Ori- 
gen was  appointed  to  the  presidency  of  the  theolog- 
ical school  in  Alexandria,  a  position  left  vacant  by 
the  flight  of  Clement  from  heathen  persecution.  He 
made  himself  proficient  in  the  various  branches  of 
learning,  traveled  in  the  Orient  and  acquired  the  He- 
brew language  for  the  purpose  of  translating  the 
Scriptures.  His  fame  extended  in  all  directions. 
He  won  eminent  heathens  to  Christianity,  and  his  in- 
structions were  sought  by  people  of  all  lands.  He 
renounced  all  but  the  barest  necessities  of  life,  rarely 
eating  flesh,  never  drinking  wine,  slept  on  the  naked 
floor,  and  devoted  the  greater  part  of  the  night  to 
prayer  and  study.  Eusebius  says  that  he  would  not 
live  upon  the  bounty  of  those  who  would  have  been 
glad  to  maintain  him  while   he  was  at  work  for  the 


I2g 


130    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

world's  good,  and  so  he  disposed  of  his  vahiable 
library  to  one  who  would  allow  him  the  daily  pittance 
of  four  obols;  and  rigidly  acted  on  our  Lord's  pre- 
cept not  to  have  * '  two  coats,  or  wear  shoes,  and  to 
have  no  anxiety  for  the  morrow."  ^  Origen  is  even 
said  to  have  mutilated  himself  (though  this  is  dis- 
puted) from  an  erroneous  construction  of  the  Savior's 
command  (Matt.  xix.  12),  and  to  guard  himself  from 
calumny  that  might  proceed  from  his  association 
with  female  catechumens.  This  act  he  lamented  in 
later  years.  If  done  it  was  from  the  purest  motives, 
and  was  an  act  of  great  self- sacrifice,  for,  as  it  was 
forbidden  by  canonical  law,   it  debarred  him  from 

clerical  promotion.  He  was  ordained 
Early  Opposition  presbyter  A.  D.  228,  by  two  bishops 
to  Origen.  outside  his  diocese,  and  this  irregular 

act  performed  by  others  than  his  own 
diocesan  gave  grounds  to  Demetrius  of  Alexandria, 
in  whose  jurisdiction  he  lived,  to  manifest  the  envy 
he  had  already  felt  at  the  growing  reputation  of  the 
young  scholar;  and  in  two  councils  composed  and 
controlled  by  Demetrius,  A.  D.  231  and  232,  Origen 
was  deposed.  ^  Many  of  the  church  authorities  con- 
demned the  action.   In  this  persecution  Origen  proved 

lEusebius  Eccl.  Hist.  VI.  Butler's  Lives  of  the  Saints,  Vol.  IV.  pp.  224- 
231,  contains  quite  a  full  sketch  of  Origen's  life,  though  as  he  was  not  can- 
onized he  is  only  embalmed  in  a  foot  note. 

'Demetrius  is  entitled  to  a  paragraph  in  order  to  show  the  kind  of  men 
who  sometimes  controlled  the  scholarship  and  opinions  of  the  period.  When 
the  patriarch  Julian  was  dying  he  dreamed  that  his  successor  would  come 
next  day,  and  bring  him  a  bunch  of  grapes.  Next  day  this  Demetrius 
came  with  his  bunch  of  grapes,  an  ignorant  rustic,  and  he  was 
soon  after  seated  in  the  episcopal  chair  It  was  this  ignoramus  who  tyran- 
nically assumed  control  of  ecclesiastical  affairs,  censured  Origen,  and  com- 
pelled bishops  of  his  own  appointing  to  pass  a  sentence  of  degradation  oa 
Origen,  which  the  legitimate  presbyters  had  refused. 


ORIGEN.  131 

himself  as  grand  in  spirit  as  in  mind.  To  his  friends 
he  said:  "  We  must  pity  them  rather  than  hate  them 
(his  enemies),  pray  for  themrather  than  curse  them, 
for  we  were  made  for  blessing,  not  for  cursing."  Ori- 
GEN  went  to  Palestine  A.  D.  230,  opened  a  school  in 
Csesarea,  and  enjoyed  a  continually  increasing  fame. 
The  persecutions  imder  Maximinus  in  235,  drove  him 
away.  He  went  to  Cappadocia,  then  to  Greece,  and 
finally  back  to  Palestine.  Defamed  at  home  he  was 
honored  abroad,  but  was  at  length  called  back  to 
Alexandria,  where  his  pupil  DiONYSiushad  succeeded 
Demetrius  as  bishop.  But  soon  after,  during  the 
persecution  under  Decius,  he  was  tortured  and  con- 
demned to  die  at  the  stake,  but  he  lingered,  and  at 
length  died  of  his  injuries  and  sufferings,  a  true  mar- 
tyr, in  Tyre,  A.  D.  253  or  254,  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
nine.  His  grave  was  known  down  to  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  historian  Schaff  declares:  "  It  is  impossible 
to  deny  a  respectful  sympathy  to  this  extraordinary 
man,  who,  with  all  his  brilliant  tal- 
Professor  Schaff  ents,  and  a  host  of  enthusiastic 
on  Origen.  friends    and    admirers,    was    driven 

from  his  country,  stripped  of  his  sa- 
cred office,  excommunicated  from  a  part  of  the 
church,  then  thrown  into  a  dungeon,  loaded  with 
chains,  racked  by  torture,  doomed  to  drag  his  aged 
frame  and  dislocated  limbs  in  pain  and  poverty,  and 
long  after  his  death  to  have  his  memory  branded,  his 
name  anathematized,  and  his  salvation  denied;  but 
who,  nevertheless,  did  more  than  all  his  enemies 
combined  to  advance  the  cause  of  sacred  learning,  to 
refute  and  convert  heathens  and  heretics,  and  to 
make  the  church  respected  in  the  eyes  of  the  world 


132     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

*  *  *  Origen  was  the  greatest  scholar  of  his  age, 
and  the  most  learned  and  genial  of  all  the  ante- 
Nicene  fathers.  Even  heathens  and  heretics  ad- 
mired or  feared  his  brilliant  talents.  His  knowledge 
embraced  all  departments  of  the  philology,  philoso- 
phy and  theology  of  his  day.  With  this  he  united 
profound  and  fertile  thought,  keen  penetration,  and 
glowing  imagination.  As  a  true  divine  he  conse- 
crated all  his  studies  by  prayer,  and  turned  them,  ac- 
cording to  his  best  convictions,  to  the  service  of  truth 
and  piety.  "^ 

While  chained  in  prison,  his  feet  in  the  stocks,  his 
constant  theme  was:  "  I  can  do  all  things  through 
Christ  who  strengtheneth  me. "  His  last  thought  was 
for  his  brethren.  "  He  has  left  the  memory  of  one  of 
the  greatest  theologians  and  greatest  saints  the  church 
has  ever  possessed.  One  of  his  own  words  strikes 
the  key-note  of  his  life :  '  Love, '  he  says  again  and 
again,  '  is  an  agony,  a  passion ;  '  '  Caritas  est  pas- 
sio. '  To  love  the  truth  so  as  to  suffer  for  it  in  the 
world  and  in  the  church ,  to  love  mankind  with  a  ten- 
der sympathy;  to  extend  the  arms  of  compassion  ever 
more  widely,  so  as  to  over-pass  all  barriers  of  dog- 
matic difference  under  the  far-reaching  impulse  of 
this  pitying  love ;  to  realize  that  the  essence  of  love 
is  sacrifice,  and  to  make  self  the  unreserved  and  will- 
ing victim,  such  was  the  creed,  such  was  the  life  of 
Origen."'* 

He  described  in  letters  now  lost,  the  sufferings  he 
endured  without  the  martyrdom  he  so  longed  for, 
and  yet  in  terms  of  patience  and  Christian  forgive- 

SHlst.  Christ.  Church,  I,  pp.  54,  55. 

*De  Pressense  Martyrs  and  Apologists  II,  p.  340. 


ORIGEN.  133 

ness.  Persecuted  by  Pagans  for  his  Christian  fidelity, 
and  by  Christians  for  heresy,  driven  from  home  and 
country,  and  after  his  death  his  morals  questioned, 
his  memory  branded,  his  name  anathematized,  and 
even  his  salvation  denied,^  there  is  not  a  character 
in  the  annals  of   Christendom  more  unjustly  treated. 

EusEBius  relates  how  Origen  bore  in  his  old  age, 
as  in  his  youth,  fearful  sufferings  for  his  fidelity  to 
his  Master,  and  carried  the  scars  of  persecution  into 
his  grave.  No  nobler  witness  to  the  truth  is  found 
in  the  records  of  Christian  fidelity.  And,  as  though 
the  terrible  persecutions  he  suffered  during  life  were 
not  enough,  he  has  for  fifteen  hundred  years  borne 
obloquy,  reproach,  and  denunciation  from  professing 
Christians  who  were  unworthy  to  loosen  his  shoe 
latchets.  Most  of  those  who  decried  him  during  his 
lifetime,  and  for  a  century  after,  were  men  whose 
characters  were  of  an  inferior,  and  some  of  a  very 
low  order;  but  the  candid  Nicephorus,  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  after  his  death,  wrote  that  he  was 
'  'held  in  great  glory  in  all  the  world. " 

This  greatest  of  all  Christian  apologists  and  exe- 
getes,  and  the  first  man  in  Christendom  since  Paul, 
was  a  distinctive  Universalist.  He  could  not  have 
misunderstood  or  misrepresented  the  teachings  of 
his  Master.  The  language  of  the  New  Testament 
was  his  mother  tongue.  He  derived  the  teachings 
of  Christ  from  Christ  himself  in  a  direct  line  through 
his  teacher  Clement  ;  and  he  placed  the  defense  of 
Christianity  on  Universalistic  grounds.  When  Cel- 
sus,  in  his '  'True  Discourse, "  the  first  great  assault  on 
Christianity,  objected  to  Christianity  on  the  ground 

^Bayle,  Diet.  Hist.  Art.  Origene. 


134    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

that  it  taught  punishment  by  fire,  Origen  replied 
that  the  threatened  fire  possessed  a  disciplinary,  puri- 
fying quality  that  will  consume  in  the  sinner  what- 
ever evil  material  it  can  find  to  consume. 

Origen  declares  that  Gehenna  is  an  analogue  of 
the  Valley  of  Hinnom  and  connotates  a  purifying 

fire  ^  but  intimates  that  it  is  not  pru- 
Gehenna  Denotes  a  dent  to  go  further,  showing  that  the 
Purifying  Fire.        idea  of  *  'reserve"  controlled  him  from 

saying  what  might  not  be  judicious. 
That  God's  fire  is  not  material,  but  spiritual  remorse 
ending  in  reformation,  Origen  teaches  in  many  pas- 
sages. He  repeatedly  speaks  of  punishment  as  aion- 
ion  (mistranslated  in  the  New  Testament  "everlast- 
ing," "eternal")  and  then  elaborately  states  and  de- 
fends as  Christian  doctrine  universal  salvation  be- 
yond all  aionion  suffering  and  sin.  Says  the  candid 
historian  Robertson:  "  The  great  object  of  this  emi- 
nent teacher  was  to  harmonize  Christianity  with 
philosophy.  He  sought  to  combine  in  a  Christian 
scheme  the  fragmentary  truths  scattered  throughout 
other  systems,  to  establish  the  Gospel  in  a  form 
which  should  not  present  obstacles  to  the  conversion 
of  Jews,  of  Gnostics,  and  of  cultivated  heathens;  and 
his  errors  arose  from  a  too  eager  pursuit  of  this 
idea.  7" 

The  effect  of  his  broad  faith  on  his  spirit  and 
treatment  of  others,  is  in  strong  contrast  to  the  bitter 
and  cruel  disposition  exhibited  by  some  of  the  early 
Christians  towards  heretics,  such  as  Tertullian  and 
Augustine.     In  reply  to  the  charge  that  Christians 

«Cont.  Cels.  VI.  25. 

'Consult  also,  Mosheim,  Dorner  and  De  Pressense. 


ORIGEN.  135 

of  different  creeds  were  in  enmity,  he  said,  "Such 
of  us  as  follow  the  doctrines  of  Jesus,  and  endeavor 
to  be  conformed  to  his  precepts,  in  our  thoughts, 
words  and  actions;  being  reviled,  we  bless;  being 
persecuted,  we  suffer  it;  being  defamed,  we  entreat. 
Nor  do  we  say  injurious  things  of  those  who  think 
differently  of  us.  They  who  consider  the  words  of 
our  Lord,  Blessed  are  the  peaceable,  and  Blessed  are 
the  meek,  will  not  hate  those  who  corrupt  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  nor  give  opprobrious  names  to  those 
who  are  in  error. " 

When  a  young  teacher  his  zeal  and  firmness  vin- 
dicated his  name  Adamantius,  man  of  steel  or  ada- 
mant. Says  De  Pressense:  "The  example  of  Ori- 
gen  was  of  much  force  in  sustaining  the  courage  of 
his  disciples.  He  might  be  seen  constantly  in  the 
prison  of  the  pious  captives  carrying  to  them  the 
consolation  they  needed.  He  stood  by  them  till  the 
last  moment  of  triumph  came,  and  gave  them  the 
parting  kiss  of  peace  on  the  very  threshold  of  the 
arena  or  at  the  foot  of  the  stake."  One  day  he  was 
carried  to  the  temple  of  Serapis,  and  palms  were 
placed  in  his  hands  to  lay  on  the  altar  of  the  Egyp- 
tian god.  Brandishing  the  boughs,  he  exclaimed, 
'•  Here  are  the  triumphal  palms,  not  of  the  idol,  but 
of  Christ. "  In  a  work  of  Origen's  now  only  existing 
in  a  Latin  translation  is  this  characteristic  thought: 
"The  fields  of  the  angels  are  our  hearts;  each  one  of 
them  therefore  out  of  the  field  which  he  cultivates, 
offers  first  fruits  to  God.  If  I  should  be  able  to  pro- 
duce today  some  choice  interpretation,  worthy  to  be 
presented  to  the  Supreme  High  Priest,  so  that  out 
of  all  those  things  which  we  speak  and  teach,  there 


136     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

should  be  somewhat  considerable  which  may  please 
the  great  High  Priest,  it  might  possibly  happen  that 
the  angel  who  presides  over  the  church,  out  of  all  our 
words,  might  choose  something,  and  offer  it  as  a 
kind  of  first  fruits  to  the  Lord,  out  of  the  small  field 
of  my  heart.  But  I  know  I  do  not  deserve  it;  nor 
am  I  conscious  to  myself  that  any  interpretation  is 
discovered  by  me  which  the  angel  who  cultivates  us 
should  judge  worthy  to  offer  to  the  Lord,  as  first 
fruits,  or  first  born. "  ^ 

Origen's  critics  are  his  eulogists.  Gieseler  re- 
marks: "To  the  wide  extended  influence  of  his  writ- 
ings it  is  to  be  attributed,  that,  in  the 
His  Critics  are  midst  of  these  furious  controversies 
his  Eulogists.  (in  the  Fifth  Century)  there  remained 

any  freedom  of  theological  specula- 
tion whatever. "  Bunsen:  "Origen's  death  is  the 
real  end  of  free  Christianity  and,  in  particular,  of  free 
intellectual  theology."  Schaff  says:  "  Origen  is 
father  of  the  scientific  and  critical  investigation  of 
Scripture."  Jerome  says  he  wrote  more  than  other 
men  can  read.  Epiphanius,  an  opponent,  states  the 
number  of  his  works  as  six  thousand.  His  books 
that  survive  are  mostly  in  Latin,  more  or  less  muti- 
lated by  translators. 

EusEBius  says  that  his  life  is  worthy  of  being  re- 
corded from  "his  tender  infancy."  Even  when  a 
child  "  he  was  wholly  borne  away  by  the  desire  of 
becoming  a  martyr,"  and  so  divine  a  spirit  did  he 
show,  and  such  devotedness  to  his  religion,  even  as 
a  child,  that  his  father,  frequently,  "when  standing 

^Homily  XI  in  Numbers,  in  Migne. 


ORIGEN.  137 

over  his  sleeping  boy,  would  uncover  his  breast,  and 
as  a  shrine  consecrated  by  the  Divine  Spirit,  rever- 
ently kiss  the  breast  of  his  favorite  offspring.  *  *  * 
As  his  doctrine  so  was  his  life;  and  as  his  life,  so  also 
was  his  doctrine. "  His  Bishop,  Demetrius,  praised 
him  highly,  till  "seeing  him  doing  well,  great  and 
illustrious  and  celebrated  by  all,  was  overcome  by 
human  infirmity,"  and  traduced  him  throughout  the 
church. 

Origen  was  followed  as  teacher  in  the  Alexan- 
drine school  by  his  pupil  Heraclas,  who  in  turn  was 
succeeded  by  Dionysius,  another  pupil,  so  that  from 
Pant^nus,  to  Clemens,  Origen,  Heraclas  and 
Dionysius,  to  Didymus,  from  say  A.  D.  160  to  A.  D. 
390,  more  than  two  centuries,  the  teaching  in  Alex- 
andria, the  very  center  of  Christian  learning,  was 
Universalistic. 

The  struggles  of  such  a  spirit,  scholar,  saint,  phi- 
losopher, must  have  been  a  martyrdom,  and  illustrate 
the  power  of  his  sublime  faith,  not  only  to  sustain  in 
the  terrific  trials  through  which  he  passed,  but  to 
preserve  the  spirit  he  always  manifested — akin  to 
that  which  cried  on  the  cross , ' '  Father,  forgive  them, 
they  know  not  what  they  do." 

The  death  of  Origen  marks  an  epoch  in  Christ- 
ianity, and  signalizes  the  beginning  of  a  period  of 
decadence.  The  republicanism  of 
The  Death  of  Christianity  began  to  give  way  before 

Origen.  the     monarchical     tendencies     that 

ripened  with  Constantine  (A.  D. 
313)  and  the  Nicean  council  (A.  D.  325).  Clement 
and  Origen  represented  freedom  of  thought,  and 
a  rational  creed  founded  on  the  Bible,  but  the  evil 


138     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

change  that  Christianity  was  soon  to  experience,  was 
fairly  seen,  says  Bunsen,  about  the  time  of  Origen's 
death.  ' '  Origen,  who  had  made  a  last  attempt  to 
preserve  liberty  of  thought  along  with  a  rational  be- 
lief in  historical  facts  based  upon  the  historical  rec- 
ords, had  failed  in  his  gigantic  efforts;  he  died  of  a 
broken  heart  rather  than  of  the  wounds  inflicted  by 
his  heathen  torturers.  His  followers  *  *  *  re- 
tained only  his  mystical  scholasticism,  without  pos- 
sessing either  his  genius  or  his  learning,  his  great 
and  wide  heart,  or  his  free,  truth-speaking  spirit. 
More  and  more  the  teachers  became  bishops,  and  the 
bishops  absolute  governors,  the  majority  of  whom 
strove  to  establish  as  law  their  speculations  upon 
Christianity." 

His  comprehensive  mind  and  vast  sympathy,  and 
his  intense  tendency  to  generalization,  caused  Origen 
to  entertain  hospitably  in  his  philosophical  system 
many  ideas  that  now  are  seen  to  be  inconsistent  and 
untenable ;  but  his  fantastic,  allegorical  interpretation 
of  Scripture,  his  vagaries  concerning  pre-existence, 
and  his  disposition  to  include  all  themes  and  theories 
in  his  system,  did  not  swerve  him  from  the  truths  and 
facts  of  Christian  revelation.  His  defects  were  but  as 
spots  on  the  sun.  And  his  vagaries  were  by  no  means  in 
excess  of  those  of  the  average  theologian  of  his  times, 

Origen  considered  philosophy  as  necessary  to  Chris- 
tianity as  is  geometry  to  philosophy ;  but  that  all  things 
essential    to    salvation    are    plainly 
A  Christian  taught-  in  the   Scriptures,  within  the 

Philosopher.  comprehension  of  the  ordinary  mind. 

"Origen     *     *     *     was  the  prince 
of  schoolmen  and  scholars,  as  subtle  as  Aquinas,  as 


ORIGEN.  139 

erudite  as  Routh  or  Tischendorf.  He  is  a  man  of 
one  book,  in  a  sense.  The  Bible,  its  text,  its  expo- 
sition, furnished  him  with  the  motive  for  incessant 
toil."  (Neoplatonism,  by  C.  Bigg,  D.  D.,  London, 
1895,  p.  163. )  The  truths  taught  in  the  Bible  may 
be  made  by  philosophers  themes  on  which  the  mind 
may  indefinitely  expatiate;  and  those  competent  will 
find  interior,  spiritual,  recondite  meanings  not  seen 
on  the  surface.  Yet  he  constantly  taught  "  that  such 
affinity  and  congruity  exist  between  Christianity  and 
human  reason,  that  not  only  the  grounds,  but  also 
the  forms,  of  all  Christian  doctrines  may  be  ex- 
plained by  the  dictates  of  philosophy.  *  *  *  That 
it  is  vastly  important  to  the  honor  and  advantage  of 
Christianity  that  all  its  doctrines  be  traced  back  to 
the  sources  of  all  truth,  or  be  shown  to  flow  from  the 
principles  of  philosophy;  and  consequently  that  a 
Christian  theologian  should  exert  his  ingenuity  and 
his  industry  primarily  to  demonstrate  the  harmony 
between  religion  and  reason,  and  to  show  that  there 
is  nothing  taught  in  the  Scriptures  but  what  is 
founded  in  reason. " 

He  held  to  the  "  most  scrupulous  Biblicism  and 
the  most  conscientious  regard  for  the  rule  of  faith, 
conjoined  with  the  philosophy  of  religion. "  *  *  * 
He  "  was  the  most  influential  theologian  in  the 
Oriental  church,  the  father  of  theological  science, 
the  author  of  ecclesiastical  dogmatics.  *  *  *  An 
orthodox  traditionalist,  a  strong  Bib- 

A  oui  ,,  •  I-  i  lical  theologian,  a  keen  idealistic 
A  Bible  Universahst.  ,  ,        ,     , 

philosopher  who  translated  the  con- 
tent of  faith  into  ideas,    completed 
the  structure  of  the  world  that  is  within,  and  finally 


I40     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

let  nothing  pass  save  knowledge  of  God  and  of  self,  in 
closest  union,  which  exalts  us  above  the  world,  and 
conducts  unto  deification.  *  *  *  Ljfe  is  a  disci- 
pline, a  conflict  under  the  permission  and  leading  of 
God,  which  will  end  with  the  conquest  and  destruc- 
tion of  evil.  *  *  *  According  to  Origen,  all 
spirits  will,  in  the  form  of  their  individual  lives,  be 
finally  rescued  and  glovihed  {aJ>okatasfas2s)."  ^  Mos- 
HEiM  considered  these  fatal  errors,  while  we  should 
regard  them  as  valuable  principles.  The  famous 
historian  assures  us  that  Origen  was  entirely  igno- 
rant of  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  substitutional  sacrifice. 
He  had  no  faith  in  the  idea  that  Christ  suffered  in 
man's  stead,  but  taught  that  he  died  in  man's  be- 
half. 

The   known   works   of   Origen    consist   of   brief 
"  Notes  on  Scripture, "  only  a  few  fragments  of  which 

are  left;  his  "  Commentaries,"  many 
The  Works  of  which  are  in  Migne's  collection; 

of  Origen.  his  "Contra  Celsum,"  or    "Against 

Celsus, "  which  is  complete  and  in  the 
original  Greek;  "  Stromata,"  only  three  fragments 
of  which  survive  in  a  Latin  translation;  a  fragment 
on  the  "  Resurrection;  "  practical  "  Essays  and  Let- 
ters," but  two  of  the  latter  remaining,  and  "Of 
Principles,  "  "  De  Principiis,"  or  UeprApx^ov.  Nearly 
all  the  original  Greek  of  this  great  work  has  per- 
ished. The  Latin  translation  by  Rufinus  is  very 
loose  and  inaccurate.  It  is  frequently  a  mere  para- 
phrase. Jerome,  whose  translation  is  better  than  that 
of  Rufinus,  accuses  the  latter  of  unfaithfulness  in  his 

^Harnack's  Outlines,  pp.  150-154. 


ORIGEN.  141 

translation,  and  made  a  new  version,  only  small  por- 
tions of  which  have  come  down  to  modern  times,  so 
that  we  cannot  accurately  judge  of  the  character  of 
this  great  work.  A  comparison  of  the  Greek  of  Ori- 
gen's  '' Against  Celsus  "  with  the  Latin  version  of 
RuFiNus  exhibits  great  discrepancies  Indeed,  Ru- 
FiNUS  confesses  that  he  had  so  "  smoothed  and  cor- 
rected "  as  to  leave  "nothing  which  could  appear 
discordant  with  our  belief. "  He  claimed,  however, 
that  he  had  done  so  because  "  his  (Origen's)  books 
had  been  corrupted  by  heretics  and  malevolent  per- 
sons, "  and  accordingly  he  had  suppressed  or  enlarged 
the  text  to  what  he  thought  Origen  ought  to  have 
said !  And  having  acknowledged  so  much  he  adjures 
all  by  their  ' '  belief  in  the  kingdom  to  come,  by  the 
mystery  of  the  resurrection  from  the  dead,  and  by 
that  everlasting  fire  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his 
angels  "  to  make  no  further  alterations !  He  reiter- 
ates his  confession  elsewhere,  and  says  he  has  trans- 
lated nothing  that  seems  to  him  to  contradict  Ori- 
gen's other  opinions,  but  has  passed  it  by,  as  "  inter- 
polated and  forged. "  For  the  sake  of  "  brevity, "  he 
says  he  has  sometimes  * '  curtailed. " 

Says  De  Pressense  :  *'  Celsus  collected  in  his  quiver 
all  the  objections  possible  to  be  made,  and  there  is 
scarcely  one  missing  of  all  the  arrows  which  in  sub» 
sequent  times  have  been  aimed  against  the  supernat- 
ural in  Christianity. "  To  every  point  made  by  Cel- 
sus,  Origen  made  a  triumphant  reply,  anticipating, 
in  fact,  modern  objections,  and  "  gave  to  Christian 
antiquity  its  most  complete  apology.  *  *  *  Many 
centuries  were  to  elapse  before  the  church  could  pre- 
sent to  the  world  any  other  defense  of  her  faith  com- 


142    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

parable  to  this  noble  book."  "It  remains  the  master- 
piece of  ancient  apology,  for  solidity  of  basis,  vigor 
of  argument,  and  breadth  of  eloqtient  exposition. 
The  apologists  of  every  age  were  to  find  in  it  an  inex- 
haustible mine,  as  well  as  incomparable  model  of  that 
royal,  moral  method  inaugurated  by  St.  Paul  and  St. 
John." 

An  illustration  of  his  manner  may  be  given  in 
his  reference  to  the  attack  of  Celsus  on  the  miracles 
of  Christ.  Celsus  dares  not  deny  them,  only  a  hun- 
dred years  after  Christ,  and  says:  "  Be  it  so,  we  ac- 
cept the  facts  as  genuine,"  and  then  proceeds  to  rank 
them  with  the  tricks  of  Egyptian  sorcerers,  and  asks: 
"Did  anyone  ever  look  upon  those  impostors  as  di- 
vinely aided,  who  for  hire  healed  the  sick  and  wrought 
wonderful  works?  If  Jesus  did  work  miracles  it  was 
through  sorcery,  and  deserves  therefore  the  greater 
contempt. "  In  reply  Origen  insists  on  the  miracles, 
but  places  the  higher  evidence  of  Christianity  on  a 
moral  basis.  He  says:  "  Show  me  the  magician  who 
calls  upon  the  spectators  of  his  prodigies  to  reform 
their  life,  or  who  teaches  his  admirers  the  fear  of 
God,  and  seeks  to  persuade  them  to  act  as  those  who 
must  appear  before  him  as  their  judge.  The  magi- 
cians do  nothing  of  the  sort,  either  because  they  are 
incapable  of  it,  or  because  they  have  no  such  desire. 
Themselves  charged  with  crimes  the  most  shameful 
and  infamous,  how  should  they  attempt  the  reforma- 
tion of  the  morals  of  others?  The  miracles  of  Christ, 
on  the  contrary,  all  bear  the  impress  of  his  own  holi- 
ness, and  he  ever  uses  them  as  a  means  of  winning  to 
the  cause  of  goodness  and  truth  those  who  witness 
them.     Thus  he  presented  his  own  life  as  the  perfect 


ORIGEN.  143 

model,  not  only  to  his  immediate  disciples,  but  to  all 
men.  He  taught  his  disciples  to  make  known  to  those 
who  heard  them,  the  perfect  will  of  God;  and  he  re- 
vealed to  mankind,  far  more  by  his  life  and  works 
than  by  his  miracles,  the  secret  of  that  holiness  by 
which  it  is  possible  in  all  things  to  please  God.  If 
such  was  the  life  of  Jesus,  how  can  he  be  compared 
to  mere  charlatans,  and  why  may  we  not  believe  that 
he  was  indeed  God  manifested  in  the  flesh  for  the 
salvation  of  our  race?"^" 

The  historian  Cave  says:  "  Celsus  was  an  Epi- 
curean philosopher  contemporary  with  Lucian,  the 
witty  atheist,  *  *  *  a  man  of  wit  and  parts,  and 
had  all  the  advantages  which  learning,  philosophy, 
and  eloquence  could  add  to  him;  but  a  severe  and 
incurable  enemy  to  the  Christian  religion,  against 
which  he  wrote  a  book  entitled  A\r]dr)<i  Aoyos,  or  'The 
True  Discourse,'  wherein  he  attempted  Christianity 
with  all  the  arts  of  insinuation,  all  the  wicked  reflec- 
tions, virulent  aspersions,  plausible  reasons,  where- 
unto  a  man  of  parts  and  malice  was  capable  to  as- 
sault it.  To  this  Origen  returns  a  full  and  solid 
answer,  in  eight  books;  wherein,  as  he  had  the  bet- 
ter cause,  so  he  managed  it  with  that  strength  of 
reason,  clearness  of  argument,  and  convictive  evi- 
dence of  truth,  that  were  there  nothing  else  to  tes- 
tify the  abilities  of  this  great  man,  this  book  alone 
were  enough  to  do  it. " 

EusEBius  declared   that   Origen   "not  only  an- 

loUhlhorn  (B.  II,  c.  ii)  says  that  in  Celsus's  attack  "Every  argument  is 
to  be  found  which  has  been  brought  against  Christianity  up  to  the  present 
day."    "The  True   Word  of  Celsus    *    *    *    is  to  be  found  almost  entire 
in  the  treatise  which  Origen  wrote  in  reply."    Neoplatoaism,  by  C.  Bigg 
D.  D, 


144     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

sweredall  the  objections  that  had  ever  been  brought, 
but  had  supplied  in  anticipation  an- 
The  Final  Answer  swers  to  all  that  ever  could  be  brought 
to  Skepticism.  against  Christianity."  Celsus,  the 
ablest  of  all  the  assailants  of  Christi- 
anity, wrote  his  "True  Discourse"  about  a  century 
before  Origen's  time.  It  is  the  fountain  whence  the 
enemies  of  Christianity  have  obtained  the  materials 
for  their  attacks  on  the  Christian  religion.  It  gar- 
bles texts,  confounds  the  different  heresies  with  the 
accepted  form  of  Christianity,  and  employs  the  keen- 
est logic,  the  bitterest  sarcasm,  and  all  the  weapons 
of  the  most  accomplished  and  unscrupulous  contro- 
versy, and  exhausts  learning,  argument,  irony,  cal- 
umny, and  all  the  skilled  resources  of  one  of  the 
ablest  of  men  in  his  assault  on  the  new  religion. 
Origen's  reply,  written  A.  D.,  249,  proceeds  on  the 
ground  already  established  by  Clement:  the  essen- 
tial relation  between  God  and  man;  the  universal 
operation  of  God's  grace;  the  preparation  for  the 
Gospel  by  Paganism ;  the  residence  of  the  genius  of 
divinity  in  each  human  soul ;  the  resurrection  of  the 
soul  rather  than  of  the  body,  and  the  curative  power 
of  all  the  divine  punishments.  He  triumphantly 
meets  Celsus  on  every  point,  argument  with  argu- 
ment, invective  with  invective,  satire  with  satire, 
and  through  all  breathes  a  sublime  and  lofty  spirit, 
immeasurably  superior  to  that  of  his  opponent.  He 
leaves  nothing  of  the  great  skeptic's  unanswered. 
Among  the  points  made  by  Celsus  and  thor- 
oughly disposed  of  by  Origen  were  some  that  have 
in  recent  years  been  presented:  that  there  is  nothing 
new  in  Christian  teaching;  that  the  pretended  mira- 


ORIGEN.  145 

cles  were  not  by  the  supernatural  act  of  God ;  that 
the  prophecies  were  misapplied  and  unfulfilled ;  that 
Christ  borrowed  from  Plato,  etc. 

The  first  system  of  Christian  theology  ever 
framed — let  it  never  be  forgotten — was  published  by 
Origen,  a.  D.  230,  and  it  declared 
The  First  of  Chris-  universal  restoration  as  the  issue  of 
tian  Theologians,  the  divine  government ;  so  that  this 
eminent  Universalist  has  the  grand 
pre-eminence  of  being  not  only  the  founder  of  scien- 
tific Christian  theology,  but  also  the  first  great  de- 
fender of  the  Christian  religion  against  its  assailants. 
"De  Principiis"  is  a  profound  book,  a  fundamental 
and  essential  element  of  which  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
universal  restoration  of  all  fallen  beings  to  their 
original  holiness  and  union  with  God. 

Origen's  most  learned  production  was  the  "Hex- 
apla."  He  was  twenty-eight  years  on  this  great 
Biblical  work.  The  first  form  was  the  "Tetrapla," 
containing  in  four  columns  the  "Septuagint,"  and 
the  texts  of  Aquila,  Symmachus,  and  Theodotion. 
This  he  enlarged  into  "Hexapla"  with  the  Hebrew 
text  in  both  Hebrew  and  Greek  letters.  Many  of 
the  books  of  the  Bible  had  two  additional  columns, 
and  some  a  seventh  Greek  version.  This  was  the 
"Octapla. "  This  immense  monument  of  learning 
and  industry  consisted  of  fifty  volumes.  It  was 
never  transcribed,  and  perished,  probably  destroyed 
by  the  Arabs  in  the  destruction  of  the  Alexandrian 
Library.  ^^ 

Origen  was  of  medium  height,  but  of  such  vigor 
and  physical  endurance  that  he  acquired  the  title 

"Kitto  Cyclo;  Davidson's  Biblical  Criticism,  Vol.1. 


146    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Adamantius,  the  man  of  steel,  or  adamant.  But  he 
constantly  wore  a  demeanor  of  benignity  and  maj- 
esty, of  kindliness  and  sanctity,  that  won  all  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact. 

Quotation  of  Origen's  Language. 
The  following  statements  from  the  pen  of  Ori- 
GEN,  and  abstracts  of  his  views  by  eminent  authors  of 
different  creeds,  will  show  the  great  scholar's  ideas  of 
human  destiny.  Many  more  than  are  here  given  might 
be  presented,  but  enough  are  quoted  to  demonstrate 
beyond  a  peradventure  that  the  great  philosopher 
and  divine,  the  equally  great  scholar  and  saint,  was  a 
Universalist.  There  is  no  little  difficulty  in  reach- 
ing Origen's  opinions  on  some  topics — happily  not  on 
man's  final  destiny — in  consequence  of  most  of  his 
works  existing  only  in  Latin  translations  confessedly 
inaccurate.  He  complained  of  perversions  while 
living,  and  warned  against  misconstruction.  ^^  But 
no  believer  in  endless  punishment  can  claim  the 
sanction  of  his  great  name. 

He  writes:     "The  end  of  the  world,  then,  and 
the  final  consummation  will  take  place  when  every- 
one shall  be  subjected  to  punishment 
Origen's  for  his  sins;  a  time  which  God  alone 

Exact  Words.  knows,  when  he  will  bestow  on  each 

one  what  he  deserves.  We  think,  in- 
deed, that  the  goodness  of  God,  through  his  Christ,  may 
recall  all  his  creatures  to  one  end,  even  his  enemies 
being  conquered  and  subdued.  For  thus  says  Holy 
Scripture,  '  The  Lord  said  to  my  Lord,  sit  thou  at 
my  right  hand,  until  I  make  thine  enemies  thy  foot- 

l2De  Principjis,  Crombie's  Translation.  Epist.  ad  Amicos. 


ORIGEN.  147 

stool. '  And  if  the  meaning-  of  the  prophet  be  less 
clear,  we  may  ascertain  it  from  the  apostle  Paul,  who 
speaks  more  openly,  thus:  'For  Christ  must  reign 
until  he  has  put  all  enemies  under  his  feet.'  But 
even  if  that  unreserved  declaration  of  the  apostle  do 
not  sufficiently  inform  us  what  is  meant  by  '  enemies 
being  placed  under  his  feet, '  listen  to  what  he  says 
in  the  following  words :  '  For  all  things  must  be  put 
under  him. '  What,  then,  is  this  *  putting  under  '  by 
which  all  things  must  be  made  subject  to  Christ?  I 
am  of  opinion  that  it  is  this  very  subjection  by  which 
we  also  wish  to  be  subject  to  him,  by  which  the  apos- 
tles also  were  subject,  and  all  the  saints  who  have 
been  followers  of  Christ.  For  the  word  '  subjection, ' 
by  which  we  are  subject  to  Christ,  indicates  that  the 
salvation  which  proceeds  from  him  belongs  to  his 
subjects,  agreeably  to  the  declaration  of  David, 
'Shall not  my  soul  be  subject  unto  God?  From  him 
Cometh  my  salvation.  •  "  *  *  *"  Seeing,  then,  that 
such  is  the  end,  when  all  enemies  will  be  subdued  to 
Christ,  when  death— the  last  enemy— shall  be  de- 
stroyed, and  when  the  kingdom  shall  be  delivered  up 
by  Christ  (to  whom  all  things  are  subject)  to  God 
the  Father;  let  us,  I  say,  from  such  an  end  as  this, 
contemplate  the  beginnings  of  things. "  *  *  *  "The 
apostolic  teaching  is  that  the  soul,  having  a  substance 
and  lite  of  its  own,  shall,  after  its  departure  from  the 
world,  be  rewarded  according  to  its  deserts,  being 
destined  to  obtain  either  an  inheritance  of  eternal  life 
and  blessedness,  if  its  actions  shall  have  procured 
this  for  it,  or  to  be  delivered  up  to  eternal  fire  and 
punishments,  if  the  guilt  of  its  crimes  shall  have 
brought  it  down  to  this."     De  Prin.  I,  vi:  i,  2. 


148     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Unquestionably  Origen,  in  the  original  Greek  of 
which  the  Latin  translation  only  exists,  here  used 
^^aionios"  (inaccurately  rendered  everlasting  and 
eternal  in  the  New  Testament)  in  the  sense  of  lim- 
ited duration ;  and  fire,  as  an  emblem  of  purification, 
for  he  says: 

"When  thou  hearest  of  the  wrath  of  God,  be- 
lieve not  that  this  wrath  and  indignation  are  passions 
of  God;  they  are  condescensions  of  language  designed 
to  convert  and  improve  the  child.  *  *  *  So  God 
is  described  as  angry,  and  says  that  he  is  indignant, 
in  order  that  thou  mayest  convert  and  be  improved, 
while  in  fact  he  is  not  angry."  ^^ 

Origen  severely  condemns  those  who  cherish  un- 
worthy thoughts  of  God,  regarding  him,  he  says,  as 
possessing  a  disposition  that  would  be  a  slander  on  a 
wicked  savage.  He  insists  that  the  purpose  of  all  pun- 
ishment, by  a  good  God,  must  be  medicinal.^* 

In  arguing  that  aionios  as  applied  to  punishment 
does  not  mean  endless,  he  says  that  the  sin  that  is 
not  forgiven  in  this  aeon  or  the  aeon  to 
Meaning  of  come,  would  be  in  some  one  of  the 

Aionios  aeons  following.     His  argument  that 

age  (undoubtedly  aion  in  the  origi- 
nal, of  which,  tmfortunately,  we  have  only  the  Latin 
translation)  is  limited,  is  quite  complete  in  "De  Prin- 
cipiis."  This  world  is  an  age  {scBculmn,  aion)  and  a 
conclusion  of  many  ages  {seculoruni).  He  concludes 
his  argument  by  referring  to  the  time  when,  beyond 
* '  an  age  and  ages,  perhaps  even  more  than  ages  of 

i^In  Jeremiah  Horn,  xviii:  6,  Ag.  Cels.  IV.  xxii. 

'^Selecta   in    Exodum;     c/cacTTOS     ovv    (TuveiStos  d/tapTtas    cauro) 
iV\e<Td<i}  KoXaadrjVat.    Also,DePrin.  I,  vi:  3. 


ORIGEN.  149 

ages,"  that  period  will  come,  viz.,  when  all  things 
are  no  longer  in  an  age,  but  when  God  is  all  in  all.^^ 

He  quotes  the  Scripture  phrase  ' '  Forever  and 
ever  and  beyond"  [in  scEciihiui  ct  in  sceciduui  et  adJiuc^ 
forever  and  further),  and  insists  that  evil,  being  a  ne- 
gation, cannot  be  eternal. 

Dr.  Bigg  sums  up  Origen's  views:  "Slowly  yet 
certainly  the  blessed  change  must  come,  the  purify- 
ing fire  must  eat  up  the  dross  and  leave  the  pure 
gold.  *  *  *  One  by  one  we  shall  enter  into  rest, 
never  to  stray  again.  Then  when  death,  the  last 
enemy,  is  destroyed,  when  the  tale  of  his  children  is 
complete,  Christ  will  *  drink  wine  in  the  kingdom  of 
his  Father.'  This  is  the  end,  when  '  all  shall  be  one, 
as  Christ  and  the  Father  are  one,'  when  *  God  shall  be 
all  in  all.'" 

Origen  never  dogmatizes;  rests  largely  on  gen- 
eral principles;  says  that  "justice  and  goodness  are  in 
their  highest  manifestations  identical;  that  God  does 
not  punish,  but  has  made  man  so  that  in  virtue  only 
can  he  find  peace  and  happiness,  because  he  has 
made  him  like  himself;  that  suffering  is  not  a  tax 
upon  sin,  but  the  wholesome  reaction  by  which  the 
diseased  soul  struggles  to  cast  out  the  poison  of  its 
malady;  that,  therefore,  if  we  have  done  wrong  it  is 
good  to  suffer,  because  the  anguish  of  returning 
health  will  cease  when  health  is  restored,  and  cannot 
cease  till  then.  Again,  that  evil  is  against  the  plan 
of  God,  is  created  not  by  him  but  by  ourselves ;  is 
therefore,  properly  speaking,  a  negation,  and  as  such 
cannot  be   eternal.     These  are,  in  the  main,  Greek 

"DePrin.  II.   iii:  5. 


150    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

thoughts,  their  chief  source  is  the  Gorgias  of  Plato; 
but  his  final  appeal  is  always  to  Scripture." 

HuET  quotes  Leontius  as  saying  that  Origen 
argued  from  the  fact  that  aionios  means  finite  dura- 
tion, the  limited  duration  of  future  pimishment. 
Origen's  argument  for  the  termmability  of  punish- 
ishment  was  based  on  the  meaning  of  this  word 
aio7iiosy^  Surely  he,  a  Platonist  in  his  knowledge  of 
Greek,  should  know  its  signification.  ^^ 

Origen  on  the  Purifying  Fire. 

On  I  Cor.  iii:  2,  he  says  (Ag.  Cels.V.  xv.):  The 
fire  that  will  consume  the  world  at  the  last  day  is  a 
purifying  fire,  which  all  must  pass  through,  though 
it  will  impart  no  pain  to  the  good.  In  expressing 
eternity  Origen  does  not  depend  upon  aion,  but 
qualifies  the  word  by  an  adjective,  thus: — tonapciron 
aiona.  Barnabas,  Hermas,  "Sibylline  Oracles," 
Justin  Martyr,  Polycarp,  Theophilus  and  Ire- 
NiEus  all  apply  the  word  aionios  to  punishment,  but 
two  of  these  taught  annihilation,  and  one  universal 
salvation  beyond  aionion  punishment. 

God  is  a  "Consuming  Fire,"  Origen  thinks,  be- 
cause he  "does  indeed  consume  and  utterly  destroy; 
that  he  consumes  evil  thoughts,  wicked  actions,  and 
sinful  desires  when  they  find  their  way  into  the 
minds  of  believers. "  He  teaches  that  "God's  con- 
suming fire  works  with  the  good  as  with  the  evil, 
annihilating  that  which  harms  his  children.      This 

i^Canoa  Farrar  says  in  Mercy  and  Judgment,  p,409,  "For  an  exhaus- 
tive treatment  of  this  word  aionios  see  Hanson's  Aion  Aionios." 

•'Some  of  the  texts  Origen  quotes  in  proof  of  universal  salvation: 
Luke  iii:  16;  I  Cor.  iii:  15;  Isa.  xvi;4;  xii:  1;  xxiv:22;  xlvi:14,  15;  Micah  vii:9; 
Ezek.  xvi:  5.3.  55;  Jer.  xxv:  15,  16;  Matt,  xviii:30;  John  x:  16;  Rom.  .xi:25,  26; 
Rom.xi:  32 ;  I  Pet.  iii:  18-21,  etc. 


ORIGEN. 


151 


fire  is  one  that  each  one  kindles ;  the  fuel  and  food  is 
each  one's  sins. "  '^  '  'What  is  the  meaning  of  eternal 
fire?"  he.asks:  "When  the  soul  has  gathered  to- 
gether a  multitude  of  evil  works,  and  an  abun- 
dance of  sins  against  itself,  at  a  suitable  time  all  that 
assembly  of  evils  boils  up  to  punishment,  and  is  set 
on  fire  to  chastisement,"  etc.  Just  as  physicians 
employ  drugs,  and  sometimes  "the  evil  has  to  be 
burned  out  by  fire,  how  much  more  is  it  to  be  un- 
derstood that  God  our  Physician,  desiring  to  remove 
the  defects  of  our  souls,  should  apply  the  punishment 
of  fire."  *  *  *  "Our  God  is  a  'consuming  fire' 
in  the  sense  in  which  we  have  taken  the  word ;  and 
thus  he  enters  in  as  a  'refiner's  fire'  to  refine  the  ra- 
tional nature,  which  has  been  filled  with  the  lead  of 
wickedness,  and  to  free  it  from  the  other  impure  ma- 
terials which  adulterate  the  natural  gold  or  silver,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  soul."  Towards  the  conclusion  of 
his  reply  to  Celsus,  Origen  has  the  following  pas- 
sage: "The  Stoics,  indeed,  hold  that  when  the 
strongest  of  the  elements  prevails  all  things  shall  be 
tiirned  into  fire.  But  our  belief  is  that  the  Word 
shall  prevail  over  the  entire  rational  creation,  and 
change  every  soul  into  his  own  perfection ;  in  which 
state  every  one,  by  the  mere  exercise  of  his  pov/er, 
will  choose  what  he  desires,  and  obtain  what  he 
chooses.  For  although,  in  the  diseases  and  wounds 
of  the  body,  there  are  some  which  no  medical  skill 
can  cure,  yet  we  hold  that  in  the  mind  there  is 
no  evil  so  strong  that  it  may  not  be  overcome  by 


iSDePrin.  II,  x:  3,  4.   I,  i.  Ag.  Cels.  iv.  13. 


152     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

the  Supreme  Word  and  God.  For  stronger  than  all 
the  evils  in  the  soul  is  the  Word,  and  the  healing 
power  that  dwells  in  him ;  and  this  healing  he  ap- 
plies, according  to  the  wiU  of  God,  to  every  man. 
The  consummation  of  all  things  is  the  destruction  of 
evil,  although  as  to  the  question  whether  it  shall  be 
so  destroyed  that  it  can  never  anywhere  arise  again, 
it  is  beyond  our  present  purpose  to  say.  Many 
things  are  said  obscurely  in  the  prophecies  on  the 
total  destruction  of  evil,  and  the  restoration  to 
righteousness  of  every  soul ;  but  it  will  be  enough  for 
our  present  purpose  to  quote  the  following  passage 
from  Zephaniah,"  etc.    Ag.  Cels.  VIII.  Ixxii. 

Thus  Origen  interprets  "fire"  in  the  Bible  not 
only  as  a  symbol  of  the  sinner's  suffering  but  of  his 
purification.  The  "consuming  fire  "  is  a  "refiner's 
fire."  It  consumes  the  sins,  and  refines  and  purifies 
the  sinner.  It  burns  the  sinner's  works,  ' '  hay,  wood 
and  stubble,"  that  result  from  wickedness.  The 
torture  is  real,  the  purification  sure ;  fire  is  a  symbol 
of  God's  severe,  certain,  but  salutary  discipline.  God's 
"wrath"  is  apparent,  not  real.  There  is  no  passion 
on  his  part.  What  we  call  wrath  is  another  name 
for  his  disciplinary  processes.  God  would  not  tell 
us  to  put  away  anger,  wrath  (Origen  says)  and  then 
be  guilty  himself  of  what  he  prohibits  in  us.  He 
declares  that  the  punishment  which  is  said  to  be  by 
fire  is  understood  to  be  applied  with  the  object  of 
healing,  as  taught  by  Isaiah,  etc.  (xiii:  i6;  xlvii: 
14,  15;  x:  17).     The  "eternal  fire"  is  curative. 

Gehenna  and  its  fires  have  the  same  signification : 
"We  find  that  what  was  termed  'Gehenna'  or  'the 
Valley  of  Ennom,'  was  included  in   the  lot  of  the 


ORIGEN.  153 

tribe  of  Benjamin,  in  which  Jerusalem  also  was  sit- 
uated.      And    seeking   to    ascertain 
Origen  on  what  might  be   the  inference  from 

Gehenna.  the  heavenly  Jerusalem  belonging  to 

the  lot  of  Benjamin,  and  the  Valley 
of  Ennom,  we  find  a  certain  confirmation  of  what  is 
said  regarding  the  place  of  punishment,  intended  for 
the  purification  of  such  souls  as  are  to  be  purified 
by  torments,  agreeably  to  the  same, — 'the  Lordcom- 
eth  like  a  refiner's  fire  and  like  fuller's  soap ;  and  he 
shall  sit  as  a  refiner  and  purifier  of  silver  and  of 
gold.'"    Ag.  Cels..  VI.  xxvi. 

In  reply  to  the  charge  of  Celsus  that  Christians 
teach  that  sinners  will  be  burnt  up  by  the  fires  of 
judgment,  Origen  replies  that  such 
isli ^Christianas"'       thoughts  had   been    entertained   by 
on  Fire.  certain  foolish  Christians,  who  were 

unable  to  see  distinctly  the  sense  of 
each  particular  passage,  or  unwilling  to  devote  the 
necessary  labor  to  the  investigation  of  Scripture. 
*  *  *  And  perhaps,  as  it  is  appropriate  to  chil- 
dren that  some  things  should  be  addressed  to  them 
in  a  manner  befitting  their  infantile  condition,  to 
convert  them,  *  *  *  so  such  ideas  as  Celsus 
refers  to  are  taught. "  But  he  adds  that  "those  who 
require  the  administration  of  punishment  by  fire" 
experience  it  '  'with  a  view  to  an  end  which  is  suita- 
ble for  God  to  bring  upon  those  who  have  been  cre- 
ated in  his  image."  In  reply  to  the  charge  of  Cel- 
sus that  Christians  teach  that  God  will  act  the  part 
of  a  cook  in  burning  men,  Origen  says, — "not  like 
a  cook  but  like  a  God  who  is  a  benefactor  of  those 
who  stand  in  need  of  discipline  of  fire. "  V.  xv,  xvi. 


154     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Origen  declares  that  sinners  who  are  "incurable" 
are  converted  by  the  threat  of  punishment.  "As  to 
the  punishments  threatened  against  the  ungodly, 
these  will  come  upon  them  after  they  have  refused 
all  remedies,  and  have  been,  as  we  may  say,  visited 
with  an  incurable  malady  of  sinfulness.  Such  is  our 
doctrine  of  pimishment;  and  the  inculcation  of  this 
doctrine  turns  many  away  from  their  sins. "  ^^ 

Pamphilus  and  Eusebius  in  their  "Apology  tor 
Origen  "  quote  these  words  from  him:  "  We  are  to 
understand  that  God,  our  physician,  in  order  to  re- 
move those  disorders  which  our  souls  contract  from 
various  sins  and  abominations,  uses  that  painful  mode 
of  cure,  and  brings  those  torments  of  fire  upon  such 
as  have  lost  the  health  of  the  soul,  just  as  an  earthly 
physician  in  extreme  cases  subjects  his  patients  to 
cautery." 

But  Origen  always  makes  salvation  depend  on 
the  consenting  will ;  hence  he  says,  (De  Prin.  II,  i:2), 
"  God  the  Father  of  all  things,  in  order  to  ensure  the 
salvation  of  all  his  creatures  through  the  ineffable 
plan  of  his  Word  and  wisdom,  so  arranged  each  of 
these,  that  every  spirit,  whether  soul  or  rational 
existence,  however  called,  should  not  be  compelled 
by  force,  against  the  liberty  of  his  own  will,  to  any 
other  course  than  that  to  which  the  motives  of  his 
own  mind  led  him." 

Origen  teaches  that  in  the  final  estate  of  universal 
human  happiness  there  will  be  differing  degrees  of 
blessedness.  After  quoting  I  Thess.  iv:  15-17,  he 
says:      "A  diversity  of  translation  and  a  different 

19  Ag.  Cels.  VIII.  x.xxix.  xl. 


ORIGEN.  15s 

glory  will  be  g-iven  to  every  one  according  to  the 
merits  of  his  actions;  and  every  one  will  be  in  that 
order  which  the  merits  of  his  work  have  procured  for 
him." 

MosHEiM  thus  expresses   Origen's  views:     "As 
all  divine  punishments  are  salutary  and  useful,  so 
also  that  which  divine  justice  has  in- 
Mosheirn  and  flicted  on  vitiated  souls,  although  it 

Robertson.  is  a  great  evil,  is  nevertheless  salu- 

tary in  its  tendency,  and  should  con- 
duct them  to  blessedness.  For  the  tiresome  conflict 
of  opposite  propensities,  the  onsets  of  the  passions, 
the  pains  and  sorrows  and  other  evils  arising  from 
the  connection  of  the  mind  with  the  body,  and  with 
a  sentient  soul,  may  and  should  excite  the  captive 
soul  to  long  for  the  recovery  of  its  lost  happiness, 
and  lead  it  to  concentrate  all  its  energies  in  order  to 
escape  from  its  misery.  For  God  acts  like  a  physi- 
cian, who  employs  harsh  and  bitter  remedies,  not 
only  to  cure  the  diseased,  but  also  to  induce  them  to 
preserve  their  health  and  to  avoid  whatever  might 
impair  it. "  ^^ 

The  candid  historian  Robertson  gives  an  acurate 
statement  of  Origen's  eschatology,  with  references 
to  his  works,  as  follows:  "All  punishment,  he  holds, 
is  merely  corrective  and  remedial,  being  ordained  in 
order  that  all  creatures  may  be  restored  to  their 
original  perfection.  At  the  resurrection  all  mankind 
will  have  to  pass  through  a  fire ;  the  purged  spirits 
will  enter  into  Paradise,  a  place  of  training  for  the 
consummation;  the  wicked  will  remain  in  the  'fire,' 

seCom.  II,  pp.  194,  195. 


156     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

which,  however,  is  not  described  as  material,  but  as 
a  mental  and  spiritual  misery.  The  matter  and  food 
of  it,  he  says,  are  our  sins,  which,  when  swollen  to 
the  height,  are  inflamed  to  become  our  pimishment; 
and  the  outer  darkness  is  the  darkness  of  ignorance. 
But  the  condition  of  these  spirits  is  not  without  hope, 
although  thousands  of  years  may  elapse  before  their 
suffering  shall  have  wrought  its  due  effect  on  them. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  who  are  admitted  into 
Paradise  may  abuse  their  free  will,  as  in  the  begin- 
ning, and  may  consequently  be  doomed  to  a  renewal 
of  their  sojourn  in  the  flesh.  Every  reasonable 
creature — even  Satan  himself — may  be  turned  from 
evil  to  good,  so  as  not  to  be  excluded  from  salva- 
tion. "  21 

Notwithstanding  Robertson's  doubt,  expressed 
elsewhere  in  his  history,  whether  Origen  taught  the 
salvability  of  "devils,"  Origen's  language  is  clear. 
He  says:  "  But  whether  any  of  these  orders  who  act 
under  the  government  of  the  Devil  *  *  *  will  in 
a  future  world  be  converted  to  righteousness  *  *  * 
or  whether  persistent  and  inveterate  wickedness  may 
be  changed  by  the  power  of  habit  into  nature,  is  a 
resiilt  which  you  yourself,  reader,  may  approve  of;" 
but  he  goes  on  to  say  that  in  the  eternal  and  invisi- 
ble worlds,  ' '  all  those  beings  are  arranged  according 
to  a  regular  plan,  in  the  order  and  degree  of  their 
merits;  so  that  some  of  them  in  the  first,  others  in 
the  second,  some  even  in  the  last  times,  after  having 
undergone  heavier  and  severer  punishments,  endured 
for  a  lengthened  period,  and  for  many  ages,  so  to 

"Hist.  Christ.  Church.  I.  p.  114. 


ORIGEN.  157 

speak,  improved  by  this  stern  method  of  training, 
and  restored  at  first  by  the  instruction  of  the  angels, 
and  subsequently  by  the  powers  of  a  higher  grade 
and  thus  advancing  through  each  stage  to  a  better 
condition,  reach  even  to  that  which  is  invisible  and 
eternal,  having  traveled  through,  by  a  kind  of  train- 
ing, every  single  office  of  the  heavenly  powers. 
From  which,  I  think,  this  will  appear  to  follow  as  an 
inference  that  every  rational  nature  may,  in  passing 
from  one  order  to  another,  go  through  each  to  all, 
and  advance  from  all  to  each,  while  made  the  sub- 
ject of  various  degrees  of  proficiency  and  failure  ac- 
cording to  its  own  actions  and  endeavors,  put  forth 
in  the  enjoyment  of  its  power  of  freedom  of  will. "  ^ 
Says  the  "Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography:" 
Origen  "  openly  proclaims  his  belief  that  the  good- 
ness of  God,  when  each  sinner  shall 
The  "Dictionary         ,  •      j  ^1  1^        r  1  •       • 

f  Ch  sta  have  received  the  penalty  of  his  sins. 

Biography/'  will,  through  Christ,  lead  the  whole 

universe  to  one  end."  "  He  is  led  to 
examine  into  the  nature  of  the  fire  which  tries  every 
man's  work,  and  is  the  penalty  of  evil,  and  he  finds  it  in 
the  mind  itself — in  the  memory  of  evil.  The  sinner's 
life  lies  before  him  as  an  open  scroll,  and  he  looks  on 
it  with  shame  and  anguish  unspeakable.  The  Phy- 
sician of  our  souls  can  use  his  own  processes  of  heal- 
ing. The  *  outer  darkness '  and  Paradise  are  but  dif- 
ferent stages  in  the  education  of  the  great  school  of 
souls,  and  their  upward  and  onward  progress  de- 
pends on  their  purity  and  love  of  truth.      He  who  is 

220rigen  held  that  anov  meant    limited  duration,  and    consequently 
that  atMi/ecTToiv   aiwvayv  must  mean  limited.  See  De  Prin.  I,  vi:  3. 


158     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

saved  is  saved  as  by  fire,  that  if  he  has  in.  him  any 
mixture  of  lead  the  fire  may  melt  it  out,  so  that  all 
may  be  made  as  the  pure  gold.  The  more  the  lead 
the  greater  will  be  the  burning,  so  that  even  if  there 
be  but  little  gold,  that  little  will  be  purified.  *  *  * 
The  fire  of  the  last  day,  will,  it  may  be,  be  at  once  a 
punishment  and  a  remedy,  burning  up  the  wood, 
hay,  stubble,  according  to  each  man's  merits,  yet  all 
working  to  the  destined  end  of  restoring  man  to  the 
image  of  God,  though,  as  yet,  men  must  be  treat- 
ed as  children,  and  the  terrors  of  the  judgment 
rather  than  the  final  restoration  have  to  be  brought 
before  those  who  can  be  converted  only  by  fears  and 
threats.  *  *  *  Gehenna  stands  for  the  torments 
that  cleanse  the  soul,  but  for  the  many  who  are 
scarcely  restrained  by  the  fears  of  eternal  torments, 
it  is  not  expedient  to  go  far  into  that  matter,  hardly, 
indeed,  to  commit  our  thoughts  to  writing,  but  to 
dwell  on  the  certain  and  inevitable  retribution  for  all 
evil.  *  *  *  God  is  indeed  a  consuming  fire,  but 
that  which  he  consumes  is  the  evil  that  is  in  the  souls 
of  men,  not  the  souls  themselves. "  (Dr.  A.  W.  W.  Dale. ) 

Translation  of  Origen's  Language  on  Universal 
Restoration. 

Crombie's  translation  (Ante-Nicene  Library,  Ed- 
inburgh, 1872)  thus  renders  Origen:  "But  as  it  is  in 
mockery  that  Celsus  says  we  speak  of  *  God  coming 
down  like  a  torturer  bearing  fire  '  and  thus  compels 
us  unseasonably  to  investigate  words  of  deeper 
meaning,  we  shall  make  a  few  remarks.  *  *  *  The 
divine  Word  says  that  our  '  God  is  a  consuming  fire  ' 
and  that  '  He  draws  rivers  of  fire  before  him; '  nay, 


ORIGEN.  .         159 

that  he  even  entereth  in  as  'a  refiner's  fire,  and  as  a 
fuller's  herb  '  to  purify  his  own  people.  But  when 
he  is  said  to  be  a  *  consuming  fire '  we  inquire  what 
are  the  things  which  are  appropriate  to  be  consumed 
by  God.  And  we  assert  that  they  are  wickedness 
and  the  works  which  result  from  it,  and  which,  being 
figuratively  called  'wood,  hay,  stubble,'  God  con- 
sumes as  a  fire.  The  wicked  man,  accordingly,  is 
said  to  build  up  on  the  previously  laid  foundation  of 
reason,  '  wood,  and  hay,  and  stubble. '  If,  then,  any 
one  can  show  that  these  words  were  differently  un- 
derstood by  the  writer,  and  can  prove  that  the  wicked 
man  literally  builds  up  '  wood,  or  hay,  or  stubble,'  it 
is  evident  that  the  fire  must  be  understood  to  be  ma- 
terial, and  an  object  of  sense.  But  if,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  works  of  the  wicked  man  are  spoken  of 
figuratively,  under  the  names  of  'wood,  or  hay,  or 
stubble,'  why  does  it  not  at  once  occur  (to  inquire) 
in  what  sense  the  word  '  fire '  is  to  be  taken,  so  that 
'  wood '  of  such  a  kind  should  be  consumed?  For  the 
Scripture  says :  '  The  fire  shall  try  each  man's  work 
of  what  sort  it  is.  If  any  man's  work  abide  which 
he  hath  built  thereupon,  he  shall  receive  a  reward. 
If  any  man's  work  be  burned,  he  shall  suffer  loss.' 
But  what  work  can  be  spoken  of  in  these  words  as 
being  '  burned,'  save  all  that  results  from  wicked- 
ness? "    Ag.  Cels:  IV.  xiii;  xciv. 

One  of  the  unaccountable  mysteries  of  religious 
thinking  is  that  all  Christians  should  not  have  agreed 
with  Origen  on  this  point.  "God  is  Love;"  love, 
which  from  its  nature  can  only  consume  that  which 
is  inimical  to  its  object, — Man,  and  not  man  him- 
self. 


i6o     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Again,  "  If  then  that  subjection  be  good  and  salu- 
tary by  which  the  Son  is  said  to  be  subject  to  the 
Father,  it  is  an  extremely  rational  and  logical  infer- 
ence to  deduce  that  the  subjection  also  of  enemies 
which  is  said  to  be  made  to  the  Son  of  God,  should 
be  understood  as  being  also  salutary  and  useful ;  as  if, 
when  the  Son  is  said  to  be  subject  to  the  Father,  the 
perfect  restoration  of  the  whole  of  creation  is  signi- 
fied, so  also,  when  enemies  are  said  to  be  subjected 
to  the  Son  of  God,  the  salvation  of  the  conquered 
and  the  restoration  of  the  lost  is  in  that  understood 
to  consist.  This  subjection,  however,  will  be  ac- 
complished in  certain  ways,  and  after  certain  train- 
ing, and  at  certain  times;  for  it  is  not  to  be  imagined 
that  the  subjection  is  to  be  brought  about  by  the 
pressure  of  necessity  (lest  the  whole  world  should 
then  appear  to  be  subdued  to  God  by  force),  but  by 
word,  reason  and  doctrine ;  by  a  call  to  a  better  course 
of  things;  by  the  best  systems  of  training;  by  the  em- 
ployment also  of  suitable  and  appropriate  threaten- 
ings,  which  will  justly  impend  over  those  who  despise 
any  care  or  attention  to  their  salvation  and  useful- 
ness." DePrin.III,v.  "I  am  of  opinion  that  the  expres- 
sion by  which  God  is  said  to  be  '  all  in  all, '  means 
that  he  is  '  all '  in  each  individual  person.  Now  he 
will  be  '  air  in  each  individual  in  this  way:  when  all 
which  any  rational  understanding  cleansed  from  the 
dregs  of  every  sort  of  vice,  and  with  every  cloud  of 
wickedness  completely  swept  away,  can  either  feel, 
or  understand,  or  think,  will  be  wholly  God;  and 
when  it  will  no  longer  behold  or  retain  anything  else 
than  God,  but  when  God  will  be  the  measure  and 
standard  of  all  its  movements,  and  thus  God  will  be 


ORIGEN.  i6i 

*  all, '  for  there  will  no  longer  be  any  distinction  of 
good  and  evil,  seeing  evil  nowhere  exists;  for  God  is  all 
things,  and  to  him  no  evil  is  near.  *  *  *  So,  then, 
when  the  end  has  been  restored  to  the  beginning, 
and  the  termination  of  things  compared  with  their 
commencement,  that  condition  of  things  will  be  re- 
established in  which  rational  nature  was  placed, 
when  it  had  no  need  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil;  so  that,  when  all  feeling  of 
wickedness  has  been  removed,  and  the  individual  has 
been  purified  and  cleansed,  he  who  alone  is  the  one 
good  God  becomes  to  him  '  all,'  and  that  not  in  the 
case  of  a  few  individuals,  or  of  a  considerable  num- 
ber, but  he  himself  is  '  all  in  all. '  And  when  death 
shall  no  longer  anywhere  exist,  nor  the  sting  of  death, 
nor  any  evil  at  all,  then  verily  God  will  be  'all  in 
all. '  "  Thus  the  final  restoration  of  the  moral  uni- 
verse is  not  to  be  wrought  in  violation  of  the  will  of 
the  creature:  the  work  of  "  transforming  and  restor- 
ing all  things,  in  whatever  manner  they  are  made,  to 
some  useful  aim,  and  to  the  common  advantage  of 
all,  "no  "  soul  or  rational  existence  is  compelled  by 
force  against  the  liberty  of  his  own  will.  "DePrin.  Ill,  vi. 
Again:  "Let  us  see  now  what  is  the  freedom  of 
the  creature,  or  the  termination  of  its  bondage. 
When  Christ  shall  have  delivered  up  the  kingdom  to 
God,  even  the  Father,  then  also  those  living  things, 
when  they  shall  have  first  been  made  the  kingdom  of 
Christ,  shall  be  delivered,  along  with  the  whole  of 
that  kingdom,  to  the  rule  of  the  Father,  that  when 
God  shall  be  all  in  all,  they  also,  since  they  are  a 
part  of  all  things,  may  haveGod  in  themselves,  as  he 
is  in  all  things. "    Origen  regarded  the  application  to 


i62    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

punishment  of  the  word  aionios,  mistranslated  ever- 
lasting-, as  in  perfect  harmony  with  this  view,  saying 
that  the  punishment  of  sin,  "  though  '  aionioji,'  is  not 
endless."  He  observes  further:  "  The  last  enemy, 
moreover,  who  is  called  death,  is  said  on  this  account 
(that  all  may  be  one,  without  diversity)  to  be  de- 
stroyed that  there  may  not  be  anything  left  of  a 
mournful  kind,  when  death  does  not  exist,  nor  any- 
thing that  is  adverse  when  there  is  no  enemy.  The 
destruction  of  the  last  enemy,  indeed,  is  to  be  under- 
stood not  as  if  its  substance,  which  was  formed  by 
God,  is  to  perish,  but  because  its  mind  and  hostile 
will,  which  came  not  from  God,  but  from  itself,  are 
to  be  destroyed.  Its  destruction,  therefore,  will  not 
be  its  non-existence,  but  its  ceasing  to  be  an  enemy, 
and  (to  be)  death.  And  this  result  must  be  under- 
stood as  being  brought  about  not  suddenly,  but 
slowly  and  gradually,  seeing  that  the  process  of 
amendment  and  correction  will  take  place  imper- 
ceptibly in  the  individual  instances  during  the  lapse 
of  countless  and  unmeasured  ages,  some  outstripping 
others,  and  tending  by  a  swifter  course  towards  per- 
fection, while  others  again  follow  close  at  hand,  and 
some  again  a  long  way  behind ;  and  thus,  through  the 
numerous  and  uncounted  orders  of  progressive 
beings  who  are  being  reconciled  to  God  from  a  state 
of  enmity,  the  last  enemy  is  finally  reached,  who  is 
called  death,  so  that  he  also  may  be  destroyed  and  no 
longer  be  an  enemy.  When,  therefore,  all  rational 
souls  shall  have  been  restored  to  a  condition  of  this 
kind,  then  the  nature  of  this  body  of  ours  will  under- 
go a  change  into  the  glory  of  a  spiritual  body." 

In  "Contra  Celsum"  (B.  VIII. ),  ORioENsays:  "We 


ORIGEN.  163 

assert  that  the  Word,  who  is  the  Wisdom  of  God, 
shall  bring  together  all  intelligent  creatures,  and 
convert  them  into  his  own  perfection,  through  the 
instrumentality  of  their  free  will  and  of  their  own 
exertions.  The  Word  is  more  powerful  than  all  the 
diseases  of  the  soul,  and  he  applies  his  remedies  to 
each  one  according  to  the  pleasure  of  God— for  the 
name  of  God  is  to  be  invoked  by  all,  so  that  all  shall 
serve  him  with  one  consent.  " 

The  heresy  that  has  wrought  so  much  harm  in 
modern  theology,  that  justness  and  goodness  in  God 
are  different   and  hostile  attributes 
Mercy  and  Justice    was    advocated,     Origen    says,     by 
Harmonious.  "some"  in  his  day,  and  he  meets  it 

admirably  (De  Prin.  II,  v:i-4),  by 
showing  that  the  two  attributes  are  identical  in  their 
purpose.  "Justice  is  goodness, "  he  declares.  "God 
confers  benefits  justly,  and  punishes  with  kindness, 
since  neither  goodness  without  justice,  nor  justice 
without  goodness,  can  display  the  dignity  of  the 
divine  nature. " 

Origen  argues  that  God  must  be  passionless  be- 
cause imchanging.     Wrath,  hatred,  repentance,  are 
ascribed  to  him  in  the  Bible  because 
Origen's  Grand        human  infirmities  require  such  a  pre- 
Statement.  sentation.      Punishment  results  from 

sin  as  a  legitimate  consequence,  and 
is  not  God's  direct  work.  *  *  *  in  the  Restitu- 
tion God's  wrath  will  not  be  spoken  of.  God  really 
has  but  one  passion — Love.  All  he  does  illustrates 
some  phase  of  this  divine  emotion.  He  declares  that 
with  God  the  one  fixed  point  is  the  End,  when  God 
shall  be  all  in  all.     All  intelligent  work  has  a  perfect 


i64     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

end.  Of  Col.  i:  20  and  Heb.  ii:  19,  he  says:  Christ  is 
"the  Great  High  Priest,  not  only  for  man  biitfor  every 
rational  creature."  In  his  Homilies  on  Ezekiel,  he 
says :  *  'If  it  had  not  been  conducive  to  the  conver- 
sion of  sinners  to  employ  suffering,  never  would  a 
compassionate  and  benevolent  God  have  inflicted 
punishment."  Love,  which  "never  faileth,"  will 
preserve  the  whole  creation  from  all  possibility  of 
further  fall;  and  "God  will  be  all  in  all,"  forever. 

Note.— Celsus  seems  to  have  been  the  first  heathen  author  to  name  the 
Christian  books,  so  that  they  were  well-known  within  a  century  of  our  Lord's 
death.  We,  undoubtedly,  have  every  objection,  advanced  by  him  against 
Christianity,  preserved  in  Origen's  reply.  He  not  only  attacks  our  faith 
on  minor  points,  but  his  chief  assaults  are  directed  to  show  that  the  new  re- 
ligion is  not  a  special  revelation;  that  its  doctrines  are  not  new;  that  it  is 
not  superior  to  other  religions;  that  its  doctrines  are  unreasonable;  that  if 
God  really  spoke  to  men,  it  would  not  be  to  one  small  nation,  in  an  obscure 
corner;  that  the  miracles  (though  actual  occurrences)  were  not  wrought  by 
divine  power;  that  Jesus  was  not  divine,  and  did  not  rise  from  the  dead;  that 
Christianity  is  an  evolution.  He  took  the  same  view  as  Renan,  Strauss 
and  modern  "  Rationalists,"  charging  the  supposed  appearance  of  Jesus 
after  his  crucifixion  to  the  imaginings  of  "  a  distracted  woman,"  or  to  the 
delusions  of  those  who  fancied  what  they  desired  to  see. 

Celsus  sometimes  selected  the  views  of  unauthorized  Christians,  as 
when  he  charged  that  they  worshiped  Christ  as  God.  Origen's  reply 
proves  that  Christ  was  held  to  be  divine,  but  not  Deity.  He  says:  "Granted 
that  there  may  be  some  individuals  among  the  multitude  of  believers  who 
are  not  in  entire  agreement  with  us,  and  who  incautiously  assert  that  the 
Savior  is  the  most  High  God;  we  do  not  hold  with  them,  but  rather  believe 
him  when  he  says:  "The  Father  who  sent  me  is  greater  than  I."  Had 
Christians  then  held  Christ  to  be  God,  he  could  not  have  said  this. 

Celsus  was  the  father  of  "  Rationalism,"  and  Origen  the  exponent  of  a 
reverent  and  rational  Christian  belief. 


XI. 

ORIGEN— CONTINUED. 

The  students,  biographers  and  critics  of  Origen  of 
all  schools  of  thought  and  theology  mainly  agree 
in  representing  him  as  an  explicit  promulgator  of 
Universalism.  Canon  Westcott  styles  him  the 
great  corrector  of  that  Africanism  which  since  Au- 
gustine has  dominated  Western  theology.  He  thus 
defines  his  views:  "All  future  punishments  exactly 
answer  to  individual  sinfulness,  and,  like  punish- 
ments on  earth,  they  are  directed  to  the  amendment 
of  the  sufferers.  Lighter  offenses  can  be  chastised 
on  earth ;  the  heavier  remain  to  be  visited  hereafter. 
In  every  case  the  uttermost  farthing  must  be  paid, 
though  final  deliverance  is  promised. " 

Blunt,  in  his  excellent  work,  describes  the 
heathen  admixtures  and  corruptions  in  manner,  cus- 
tom, habit,  conduct  and  life  that  be- 

Blunt  on  Origen.     ^^^  ^°  P^^^^^^  ^"^^^§^  the  latter  part 
of  the  Third  Century,    as  the  influ- 
ence of  the  great  Alexandrine  fathers 
waned,  and  the  Latinizing  of  the  church  began  to  as- 
sert itself.  1 

* '  There  will  come  a  time  when  man,  completely 
subjected  to  Christ  by  the  operation  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  says  Bigg,  epitomizing  Origen,  "shall  in 
Christ  be  completely  subjected  to  the  Father.     But 

iCopious  references  have  already  been  made  on  this  point. 
165 


i66     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

now, "  he  adds,   "the  end  is  always  like  the  begin- 
ning.    The  manifold  diversity  of  the 
Dr.  Bigg  on  world  is  to  close  in  imitf^,  it  must  then 

Origen.  have  sprung  from  unity.     His  expan- 

sion of  this  theory  is  in  fact  an  elab- 
orate commentary  upon  the  eighth  chapter  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  and  the  fifteenth  chapter  of 
the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  Those,  he  felt, 
were  the  two  keys,  the  one  to  the  eternity  before, 
the  other  to  the  eternity  after.  What  the  church 
cannot  pardon,  God  may.  The  sin  which  has  no  for- 
giveness in  this  aeon  or  the  aeon  to  come,  may  be 
atoned  for  in  some  one  of  the  countless  aeons  of  the 
vast  hereafter."  This  exegesis  serves  to  show  us 
how  the  primitive  church  treated  the  "unpardonable 
sin."  (Matt,  xii:  32.)  The  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost  "shall  not  be  forgiven  in  this  world  {aion,  age) 
nor  in  the  world  {aicvi,  age)  to  come."  According 
to  Origen,  it  may  be  in  "some  one  of  the  countless 
aeons  of  the  vast  hereafter." 

The  historian  Schaff  concedes  that  among  those 
quickened  and  inspired  to  follow  Origen  were 
Pamphilus,  Eusebius  of  Caesarea,  Didymus  of  All 
exandria,  Athanasius,  Basil  the  Great,  Gregory  .of 
Nazianzum,  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa;  and  among  the 
Latin  fathers,  Hilary  and  Jerome.  And  he  feels 
obliged  to  add:  "Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  perhaps 
also  Didymus,  even  adhered  to  Origen's  doctrine  of 
the  final  salvation  of  all  created  intelligences.  "^ 


*  "  The  theology  of  Christendom  and  its  character  for  the  first  three 
centuries  was  shaped  by  three  men.  Ignatius,  Irenaeus  and  Cyprian  gave  its 
organization;  Clement  and  Origen  its  form  of  religious  thought."  British 
Quarterly  Review,  1879. 


ORIGEN— CONTINUED.  167 

BuNSEN   declares   that   Origen  adduces  in    "De 
Principiis, "  in  favor  of  "the  universality  of  final  sal- 
vation," the  arguments  of  "nearly  all 
Bunsen  on  the     "Ante  -  Nicene    fathers    before 

Origen.  him."  And  Bunsen  proceeds  to  show 

that  the  conviction  that  so  broad  a 
faith  would  not  enable  hierarchs  to  control  the  peo- 
ple, inclined  his  opponents  to  resort  to  the  terrors 
of  an  indefinite,  and  thus,  to  their  apprehension,  infi- 
nite and  eternal  punishment,  which  has  vengeance 
and  not  amendment  for  its  end.  "Away  with  Ori- 
gen !  What  is  to  become  of  virtue,  and  heaven,  and 
— clerical  power,  if  the  fear  of  eternal  punishment  is 
not  forever  kept  before  men's  eyes  as  the  prop  of  hu- 
man and  divine  authority?"  So  thought  Demetrius, 
Bishop  of  Alexandria  in  230.  Bunsen  adds  that  Or- 
igen taught  that  "  the  soul,  having-  a  substance  and 
life  of  her  own,  will  receive  her  reward,  according 
to  her  merits,  either  obtaining  the  inheritance  of 
eternal  life  and  blessedness,  or  being  delivered  over 
to  eternal  death  and  torments, "  after  which  comes 
the  resurrection,  the  anastasis,  the  rising  into  incor- 
ruption  and  glory,  when  "  finally  at  the  end  of  time, 
God  will  be  all  in  all ;  not  by  the  destruction  of  the 
creature,  but  by  its  gradual  elevation  into  his  divine 
being.  This  is  life  eternal,  according  to  Christ's  own 
teaching."  Of  the  gfrand  faith  in  universal  redemp- 
tion. Prof.  Plumptre  says:  "  It  has  been,  and  is, 
the  creed  of  the  great  poets  whom  we  accept  as  the 
spokesmen  of  a  nation's  thoughts. "  ^ 

^Spirits  in  Prison,  p.  13.  Dr.  Ballou  in  his  Ancient  History  of  Universal- 
ism,  p.  95,  note,  gives  at  length  references  to  the  passages  in  Delarue's  edi- 
tion of  Origen  in  which  the  doctrine  of  universal  salvation  is  expressed  in 
Origen's  own  words. 


i68     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

The  treatment  experienced  by  Origen  is  one  of 
the  anomalies  of  history.  The  first  hostility  to  him, 
followed  by  his  deposition  and  ex- 
Origen  Cruelly  communication,  A.  D.  232,  is  con- 
Treated,  ceded  to  have  been  in  consequence 
of  his  opposition  to  the  Episcopal 
tendencies  of  Bishop  Demetrius,  and  the  envy  of 
the  bishop.  His  Universalism  was  not  in  question. 
Lardner  says  that  he  was  "not  expelled  from  Alex- 
andria for  heresy,  but  for  envy."  Bunsen  says: 
"Demetrius  induced  a  numerous  synod  of  Egyptian 
bishops  to  condemn  as  heretical  *  *  *  Origen's 
opinion  respecting  the  universality  of  final  salva- 
tion." But  Bunsen  seems  to  contradict  his  own 
words  by  adding :  "This  opinion  he  had  certainly 
stated  so  as  even  to  hold  out  a  prospect  of  the  con- 
version of  Satan  himself  by  the  irresistible  power 
of  the  love  of  the  Almighty,"  but  he  was  condemned 
"  'not,'  as  says  St.  Jerome,  who  was  no  friend  to  his 
theology,  'on  account  of  novelty  of  doctrine — not  for 
heresy — but  because  they  could  not  bear  the  glory 
of  his  learning  and  eloquence.'"  The  opposition  to 
Origen  seems  to  have  begun  in  the  petty  anger  of 
Demetrius,  who  was  incensed  because  Origen,  a 
layman,  delivered  discourses  in  the  presence  of  bish- 
ops (Alexander  and  Theoctistus),  though  at  their 
request,  and  because  he  was  ordained  out  of  his  dio- 
cese. Demetrius  continued  his  persecutions  until 
he  had  degraded  Origen  from  the  ofSce  of  presby- 
ter, though  all  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  in  Pales- 
tine refused  to  recognize  the  validity  of  the  sentence. 
His  excommunication,  however,  was  disregarded  by 
the  bishops  of  Palestine,  Arabia  and  Greece.    Going 


ORIGEN— CONTINUED.  169 

from  Alexandria  to  Greece  and  Palestine,  Origen 
was  befriended  by  Bishop  Firmilian  in  Cappadocia 
for  two  years ;  and  was  also  welcomed  in  Nicomedia 
and  Athens.* 

HuET  says:  "Everyone,  with  hardly  an  excep- 
tion, adhered  to  Origen. "  And  Doucin:  "Provided 
one  had  Origen  on  his  side,  he  believed  himself  cer- 
tain to  have  the  truth. " 

Origen's  Theology  Generally  Accepted. 

That  his  opinions  were  not  obnoxious  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  most  of  his  friends  and  followers 
were  placed  in  charge  of  the  most  important 
churches.  Says  De  Pressense:  "The  Eastern 
church  of  the  Third  Century  cancelled,  in  fact,  the 
sentence  passed  upon  Origen  under  the  influence  of 
the  hierarchical  party.  At  Alexandria  itself  his  dis- 
ciples maintained  the  pre-eminence,  and  at  the  death 
of  Demetrius,  Heraclas,  who  had  been  the  most  in- 
timate friend  and  trusted  disciple  of  Origen,  was 
raised  to  the  Episcopal  dignity  by  the  free  choice  of 
the  elders.  *  *  *  Heraclas  died  A.  D.  249  and 
was  succeeded  by  another  disciple  of  Origen,  *  *  * 
Dionysius  of  Alexandria.  *  *  *  jje  was  an  as- 
siduous disciple  of  Origen,  and  with  his  death  the 
halcyon  days  of  the  school  of  Alexandria  were  now 
over.  Dionysius  was  the  last  of  its  great  masters." 
It  is  to  be  deplored  that  none  of  the  writings  of 
Dionysius  are  known  to  exist. 

Theophylact,  Bishop  of  Caesarea,  expressed  the 
most  ardent  friendship  for   Origen,  and  offered  him 

*De  Pressense  charges  the  acrimony  of  Demetrius  to  Origen's  opposi- 
sition  to  the  encroachments  of  the  Episcopate  and  to  his  disapproval  of  the 
ambition  of  the  hierarchy.    Martyrs  and  Apologists,  p.  332. 


I70    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

a  refuge  in  Caesarea,  and  a  position  as  teacher.  Fir- 
MiLiAN,  Bishop  of  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia,  received 
Origen  during-  Maximin's  persecution,  and  was  al- 
ways a  fast  friend.  The  majority  of  the  Palestinian 
bishops  were  friendly.  Jerome  mentions  Trypho  as 
a  disciple  of  Origen.  He  was  author  of  several  com- 
mentaries on  the  Old  Testament.  Hippolytus  is 
spoken  of  as  "a  disciple  of  Origen  and  Dionysius  of 
Alexandria,  '  the  Origen  of  the  West' "  *  *  * 
attracted  to  Origen  "  by  all  the  affinities  of  heart  and 
mind." 

The  state  of  opinion  on  the  subject  of  universal 
salvation  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  though  Ignatius, 

Iren/eus,  Hippolytus  and  others 
His  Universalism  wrote  against  the  prevalent  heresies 
Never  Condemned,    of  their  times,  Universalism  is  never 

named  as  among  them.  Some  of  the 
alleged  errors  of  Origen  were  condemned, but  his  doc- 
trine of  universal  salvation,  never.  Methodius,  who 
wrote  A.  D.  300;  PAMPHiLusand  Eusebius,  A.  D.  310; 
Eustathius,  a.  D.  380;  Epiphanius,  A.  D.  3 76  and  394; 
Theophilus,  a.  D.  400-404,  and  Jerome,  A.  D.  400; 
all  give  lists  of  Origen's  errors,  but  none  name  his 
Universalism  among  them.  Besides,  some  of  those 
who  condemned  his  errors  were  Universalists,  as  the 
school  of  Antioch.  And  many  who  were  opponents 
of  Origenism  were  mentioned  by  Origen's  enemies 
with  honor  notwithstanding  they  were  Universalists, 
as  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa. 
Pamphilus  and  Eusebius,  A.  D.  307-310,  jointly 
wrote  an  Apology  for  Origen  that  contained  declara- 
tions from  the  ancient  fathers  endorsing  his  views  of 
the  Restitution.     This  work,  had  it  survived,  would 


ORIGEN— CONTINUED.  171 

undoubtedly  be  an  invaluable  repository  of  evidence 
to  show  the  general  prevalence  of  his  views  on  the 
part  of  those  whose  writings  have  not  been  preserved. 
All  Christians  must  lament  with  Lardner  the  loss 
of  a  work  that  would  have  told  us  so  much  of  the 
great  Alexandrian.  It  seems  to  have  been  the  fash- 
ion with  the  ancient  Latin  theologians  to  burn  the 
books  they  could  not  refute. 

Farrar  names  the  eminent  ancients  who  men- 
tion Origen  with  greatest  honor  and  respect.  Some, 
like  Augustine,  do  not  accept  his  views,  but  all 
utter  eulogistic  words,  many  adopt  his  sentiments, 
and  EusEBius  added  a  sixth  book  to  the  production  of 
Pamphilus,  in  consequence  of  the  detractions  against 
Origen.  While  he  had  his  opponents  and  defamers, 
the  best  and  the  most  of  his  contemporaries  and  im- 
mediate successors  either  accepted  his  doctrines  or 
eulogized  his  goodness  and  greatness. 

Origen  bitterly  lamented  the  misrepresentation 
of  his  views  even  during  his  lifetime.  How  much 
more  might  he  have  said  could  he  have  foreseen  what 
would  be  said  of  him  after  his  death. 

Pamphilus,  who  was  martyred  A.  D.  294,  and 
Eusebius,  in  their  lost  Apology  for  Origen,  which  is 
mentioned  by  at  least  two  writers  who  had  seen  it, 
gave  many  testimonies  of  fathers  preceding  Origen, 
favoring  Universalism,^  and  Domitian,  Bishop  of 
Ancyra,  complains  that  those  who  condemn  the  res- 
torationism  of  Origen  "anathematize  all  those  saints 
who  preceded  and  followed  him,"  implying  the  gen- 

^Routh,  Reliquiae  Sacrse,  iii,  p.  498. 


172     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

eral  prevalence  of  Universalism  before  and  after  the 
days  of  Origen. 

Among  the  celebrated  contemporaries  and  imme- 
diate successors  of  Origen  whose  writings  on  the 

question  of  man's  final  destiny  do  not 
Origen's  survive,  but  who,  from  the  relations 

Contemporaries.       they  sustained  to  this  greatest  of  the 

Fathers,  must  have  sympathized  with 
his  belief  in  universal  restoration,  may  be  mentioned 
Alexander,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem  (A.  D.  216),  a  fel- 
low student;  Theoctistus,  Bishop  of  Caesarea  (A.  D. 
240-260);  Heraclas,  Bishop  of  Alexandria  (A.  D. 
200-248);  Ambrose  (A.  D.  200-230);  Firmilian, 
Bishop  of  Csesarea  (A.  D.  200-270);  Athenodore, 
his  brother  (A.  D.  210-270);  all  friends  and  adher- 
ents of  Origen.  They  must  have  cherished  what 
was  at  the  time  the  prevalent  sentiment  among 
Oriental  Christians — a  belief  in  universal  restoration 
— though  we  have  no  testimonies  from  them. 

On  the  unsupported  statement  of  Jerome,  Origen 
is  declared  to  have  protested  his  orthodoxy  to  the 
reigning  Pope,  Fabian,  A.  D.  246,  and  solicited  re-ad- 
mission to  the  communion  of  the  church.  He  is  said 
to  have  laid  the  blame  of  the  publication  of 
some  of  his  heterodox  sentiments  to  the  haste 
of  his  friend  Ambrose.  But  as  Origen  continued 
to  teach  Universalism  all  the  rest  of  his  life  the 
statement  of  Jerome  must  be  rejected,  or  universal 
restoration  was  not  among  the  heterodox  doctrines. 
At  the  time  Origen  is  said  to  have  written  the  letter, 
his  pupil  and  friend,  Dionysius,  was  Patriarch  of 
Alexandria,  and  he  wrote  to  Pope  Fabian  and  other 
bishops,  it  is  probable,   to  effect  a  reconciliation,   to 


ORIGEN— CONTINUED.  173 

which  DioNYSius  and  most  of  the  bishops  would  be 
favorable.     Besides,  Origen  is  on  record  as  classing 
all  bishops  as  of  equal  eminence,  except  as  goodness 
gave  them  superior  rank,  so  that  he  could  not  have 
regarded  Fabian  as  pope.     That  the  general  senti- 
ment during  Origen's  times  and  for  some  time  after 
was  universalistic  is  thus  made  apparent.^ 
Ancient  Universalist  Schools. 
Dr.  Beecher  says:   "Two  great   facts  stand  out 
on  the  page  of  ecclesiastical  history.     One,  that  the 
first  system  of  Christian  theology  was 
Dr.  Beecher's  composed  and  issued  by  Origen  in  the 

Testimony.  year  230  after  Christ,  of  which  a  fun- 

damental and  essential  element  was 
the  doctrine  of  the  universal  restoration  of  all  fallen 
beings  to  their  original  holiness  and  union  with  God. 
The  second  is,  that  after  the  lapse  of  a  little  more 
than  three  centuries,  in  the  year  544,  this  doctrine 
was  for  the  first  time  condemned  and  anathematized 
as  heretical.  *  *  *  From  and  after  this  point 
(A.  D.  553)  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment 
reigned  with  undisputed  sway  during  the  Middle 
Ages  that  preceded  the  Reformation.  *  *  *  What, 
then,  was  the  state  of  facts  as  to  the  leading  theo- 
logical schools  of  the  Christian  world,  in  the  age  of 
Origen,  and  some  centuries  after?  It  was  in  brief 
this:  There  were  at  least  six  theological  schools  in 
the  church  at  large.      Of  these  six  schools,  one,  and 

6"  At  the  close  of  the  Second  Century  the  church  in  Alexandria  was 
wealthy  and  numerous .  Demetrius,  the  bishop ,  gave  the  finishing  stroke  to 
the  Congregationalism  of  the  church  by  censuring  Origen  and  by  appoint- 
ing suffragan  bishops  whom  he  persuaded  to  pass  a  sentence  upon  Origen 
which  the  presbyters  had  refused  to  sanction."  Redepenning,  as  quoted 
by  Bigg. 


174     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

only  one,  was  decidedly  and  earnestly  in  favor  of  the 
doctrine  of  future  eternal  punishment.  One  was  in 
favor  of  the  annihilation  of  the  wicked,  two  were  in 
favor  of  the  doctrine  of  universal  restoration  on  the 
principles  of  Origen,  and  two  in  favor  of  universal 
restoration  on  the  principles  of  Theodore  of  Mopsu- 
estia.  It  is  also  true  that  the  prominent  defenders 
of  the  doctrine  of  universal  restoration  were  decided 
believers  in  the  divinity  of  Christ,  in  the  Trinity,  in 
the  incarnation  and  atonement,  and  in  the  great 
Christian  doctrine  of  regeneration ;  and  were  in  piety, 
devotion.  Christian  activity,  and  missionary  enter- 
prise, as  well  as  in  learning  and  intellectual  power 
and  attainments,  inferior  to  none  in  the  best  ages  of 
the  church,  and  were  greatly  superior  to  those  by 
whom,  in  after  ages,  they  were  condemned  and  anath- 
ematized. From  two  theological  schools  there 
went  forth  an  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  eternal 
punishment,  which  had  its  ground  in  a  deeper  Chris- 
tian interest ;  inasmuch  as  the  doctrine  of  a  universal 
restoration  was  closely  connected  with  the  entire 
dogmatic  systems  of  both  these  schools,  namely  that 
of  Origen  (Alexandrian),  and  the  school  of  Antioch. " 
"Three  at  least  of  the  greatest  of  the  ancient  schools 
of  Christian  theology — the  schools  of  Alexandria, 
Antioch  and  Csesarea — leaned  on  this  subject  to  the 
views  of  Origen,  not  in  their  details,  but  in  their 
general  hopefulness.  *  *  *  The  fact  that  even 
these  Origenistic  fathers  were  able,  with  perfect 
honesty,  to  use  the  current  phraseology,  shows  that 
such  phraseology  was  at  least  capable  of  a  different 
interpretation  from  that  (now)  commonly  put  upon 
it."     The  school  in  Northern  Africa  favored  the  doc- 


ORIGEN— CONTINUED.  175 

trine  of  endless  punishment ;  that  in  Asia  Minor  an- 
nihilation. The  two  in  Alexandria  and  Caesarea  were 
Universalistic  of  the  school  of  Origen  ;  those  at  Anti- 
och  and  Edessa  were  Universalistic  of  the  school  of 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  and  Diodore  of  Tarsus. 
"Decidedly  the  most  powerful  minds  (300  to  400 
A.  D.)  adopted  the  doctrine  of  universal  restoration, 
and  those  who  did  not  adopt  it  entered  into  no  contro- 
versy about  it  with  those  who  did.  In  the  African 
school  all  this  was  reversed.  From  the  very  begin- 
ning they  took  strong  ground  in  favor  of  the  doctrine 
of  eternal  punishment,  as  an  essential  part  of  a  great 
system  of  law  of  which  God  was  the  center. "  ^ 

It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  the  schools  in 
Asia  Minor  and  Northern  Africa,  where  annihilation 
and  endless  punishment  were  taught,  were  not 
strictly  divinity  schools,  but  mere  seminaries. 

The  one  school  out  of  the  six  in  Christendom  that 
taught  endless  punishment  was  in  Africa,  and  the 
doctrine  was  derived  by  Latins  from  misunderstand- 
ing a  foreign  language,  through  mis-translations  of 
the  original  Greek  Scriptures,  and  was  obtained  by 
infusing  the  virus  of  Roman  secularism  into  the 
simplicity  of  Christianity.  Maine  in  his  "Ancient 
Law"  attributes  the  difference  between  Eastern  and 
Western  theology  to  this  cause.  The  student  of 
primitive  Christianity  will  see  that  Tertullian, 
Cyprian,  Minucius  Felix,  down  to  Augustine,  were 
influenced  by  these  causes,  and  created  the  theolog 
cal  travesty  that  ruled  the  Christian  world  for  dark 
and  sorrowful  centuries. 

^Hist.  Doct.  Fut.  Ret. 


176    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

On  this  point  (that  Origen's  views  were  general) 
Neale  observes:  "In  reading  the  works  of  Origen, 
we  are  not  to  consider  his  tenets  and  opinions  as  those 
of  one  isolated  doctor; — they  are  rather  an  embodi- 
ment of  the  doctrines  handed  down  in  the  Catechet- 
ical school  of  Alexandria.  And  this  school  was  the 
type,  or  model,  according  to  which  the  mind  of  the 
Alexandrine  church  was  cast;  the  philosophy  of 
Pantasnus  descended  to  Clemens, — and  from  him  it 
was  caught  by  Origen."^ 

From  these  facts  it  is  easily  seen  that  the  here- 
sies of  which  Origen  was  accused  did  not  touch  the 
doctrine  of  universal  restoration. 
Origen  Misrep-  They  were  for  teaching  inequality 
resented.  between  the  persons  of  the  Trinity, 

the  pre-existence  of  the  human  soul, 
denying  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  affirming 
that  wicked  angels  will  not  suffer  endless  punish- 
ment, and  that  all  souls  will  be  absorbed  into  the 
Infinite  Fountain  whence  they  sprang,  like  drops 
falling  into  the  sea.  This  latter  accusation  was  a 
perversion  of  his  teaching  that  God  will  be  '  'all  in 
all. "  Some  of  these  doctrines  are  only  found  in 
alleged  quotations  in  the  works  of  his  opponents,  as 
Jerome  and  others  who  wrote  against  him.  His 
language  was  sometimes  misunderstood,  and  oftener 
ignorantly  or  purposely  perverted.  Many  quota- 
tions are  from  works  of  his  not  in  existence.  Inter- 
polations and  alterations  were  made  by  his  enemies 
in  his  works  even  during  his  lifetime,  as  he  com- 
plained.    Epiphanius    "attacked   Origen  in  Jerusa- 

8Holv  Eastern  Church,  p.  37. 


ORIGEN— CONTINUED.  177 

lem  after  he  was  dead,  and  tried  to  make  Bishop 
John  denounce  him.  Failing  here  he  tried  to  com- 
pel Jerome,  through  fear  for  his  reputation  for  or- 
thodoxy, to  do  the  same,  and  succeeded  so  far  as  to 
disgrace  Jerome  forever  for  his  meanness,  and  cow- 
ardice, and  double  dealing.  Then  Theophilus, 
Bishop  of  Alexandria,  came  to  his  aid  in  anathema- 
tizing Origen.  He  called  a  synod  A.  D.  399,  in 
which  he  condemned  Origen  and  anathematized  all 
who  should  read  his  works. "  "After  this,  Epipha- 
nius  died.  But  his  followers  pursued  the  same  work 
in  his  spirit,  until  Origen  was  condemned  again  by 
Justinian;"  this  time  for  his  Universalism,  but,  as 
will  be  seen  hereafter,  the  church  did  not  sustain 
Justinian's  attack.^ 

The  reprehensible  practices  to  which  the  odiuin 
theologicum  has  impelled  good  men,   is  illustrated  by 

Dr.  Enoch  Pond,  professor  in  Ban- 

Dr.  Pond's  Mis-       ^^^     Theological    Seminary.       Dis- 

,  „  .  pleased  with  the  wonderfully  candid 

statements  of  Dr.  Edward  Beecher, 
in  his  articles  in  "The  Christian  Union,"  afterwards 
contained  in  "History  of  the  Doctrine  of  Future  Ret- 
ribution, "  he  reviewed  the  articles  in  the  same  paper, 
and  in  order  to  convict  Dr.  Beecher  of  inaccuracy,  Dr. 
Pond  quotes  from  Crombie's  translation  of  Rufinus's 
Latin  version  instead  of  from  Crombie's  rendering  of 
the  actual  Greek  of  Origen,  and  this,  too,  when  not 
only  does  RuFiNus  confess  that  he  has  altered  the 
sense  but  in  the  very  book  (II.I)  from  which  Dr. Pond 

'Socrates,  the  ecclesiastical  historian,  defends  Origen  from  the  attacks 
of  his  enemies,  and  finding  him  sound  on  the  co-eternity  of  Christ  with  God, 
will  not  hear  of  any  heresy  in  him.   Eccl.  Hist.,  b.  vi,  ch.  xiii. 


178     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

quotes  is  Crombie's  translation  of  the  Greek,  and  the 
following-  note  from  Crombie  is  at  the  beginning-  of 
the  chapter:  "  The  whole  of  this  chapter  has  been 
preserved  in  the  original  Greek,  which  is  literally 
translated  in  corresponding  portions  on  each  page,  so 
that  the  differences  between  Origen's  own  words  and 
the  amplifications  and  alterations  of  the  paraphrase 
of  Rufinus  may  be  at  once  patent  to  the  reader. "  It 
almost  seems  that  there  is  a  fatality  attendant  upon 
all  hostile  critics  who  deal  with  Origen.  The  injus- 
tice he  received  in  life  seems  to  have  dogged  his 
name  in  every  age. 

The  manner  in  which  theological  questions  were 
settled  and  creeds  established  in  those  days,  is  shown 
by  Athanasius.  He  says  that  when  the  Emperor 
CoNSTANTius  at  the  council  of  Milan,  A.  D.  355,  com- 
manded the  bishops  to  subscribe  against  Athanasius 
and  they  replied  that  there  was  no  ecclesiastical 
canon  to  that  effect,  the  Emperor  said,  "  Whatever  I 
will,  let  that  be  esteemed  a  canon." 

A.  D.  402,  when  Epiphanius  came  from  Cyprus 
to  Constantinople  with  a  synodical  decree  condemn- 
ing Origen's  books  without  excom- 
Universalism  in  ...  ^  .         j     i-      j 

^  .  o  1  •  municatmg-  Origen,  he  declined 
Good  Repute  in  **  ' 

the  Fifth  Century.  Chrysostom's  invitation  to  lodge  at 
the  Episcopal  palace,  as  Chrysostom 
was  a  friend  and  advocate  of  Origen.  He  urged  the 
clergy  of  the  city  to  sign  the  decree,  but,  Socrates 
says,  "  many  refused,  among  them  Theotinus,  Bishop 
of  Scythia,  who  said,  '  I  choose  not,  Epiphanius,  to 
insult  the  memory  of  one  who  ended  his  life  piously 
long  ago;  nor  dare  I  be  guilty  of  so  impious  an  act, 
as  that  of  condemning  what  our  predecessors  by  no 


ORIGEN-CONTINUED.  179 

means  rejected;  and  especially  when  I  know  of  no 
evil  doctrine  contained  in  Origen's  books.  *  *  * 
Those  who  attempt  to  fix  a  stigma  on  these  writings 
are  unconsciously  casting  a  dishonor  upon  the  sacred 
volume  whence  their  principles  are  drawn.'  Such 
was  the  reply  which  Theotinus,  a  prelate,  eminent 
for  his  piety  and  rectitude  of  life,  made  to  Epipha- 
nius. "  In  the  next  chapter  (xiii),  Socrates  states 
that  only  worthless  characters  decried  Origen. 
Among  them  he  mentions  Methodius,  Eustathius, 
Apollinaris  and  Theophilus,  as  "four  revilers, " 
whose  "  censure  was  his-commendation. "  Socrates 
was  bom  about  A.  D.  380,  and  his  book  continues 
EusEBius's  history  to  A.  D.  445,  and  he  records  what 
he  received  from  those  who  knew  the  facts.  This 
makes  it  clear  that  while  Origen's  views  were  re- 
jected by  some,  they  were  in  good  repute  by  the 
most  and  the  best,  two  hundred  years  after  his 
death. 

Even  Augustine  admits  that  "some,  nay,  very 
many"  {jionniilli,  quani  plurimi),  pity  with  human 
feeling,  the  everlasting  punishment  of  the  damned, 
and  do  not  believe  that  it  is  so. "  ^°  The  kind  of  peo- 
ple thus  believing  are  described  by  Dcederlein, 
"  The  more  highly  distinguished  in  Christian  antiq- 
uity any  one  was  for  learning,  so  much  the  more  did 
he  cherish  and  defend  the  hope  of  future  torments 
sometime  ending. " 

Previous  to  A.  D.  200  three  different  opinions 
were  held  among  Christians — endless  punishment, 
annihilation,  and  universal  salvation ;  but,  so  far  as 

lOEnchirid.  ch.  112. 


t8o    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

the  literature  of  the  times  shows,  the  subject  was 
never  one  of  controversy,  and  the 
Different  Opinions  last-named  doctrine  prevailed  most, 
on  Human  Destiny,  if  the  assertions  of  it  in  literature 
are  any  test  of  its  acceptance  by  the 
people.  For  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  A.  D.  250  to 
400,  though  Origen  and  his  heresies  on  many  points 
are  frequently  attacked  and  condemned,  there  is 
scarcely  a  whisper  on  record  against  his  Universal- 
ism.  On  the  other  hand,  to  be  called  an  Origenfst 
was  a  high  honor,  from  260  to  290.  A.  D  300  on, 
the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment  began  to  be  more 
explicitly  stated,'  notably  by  Arnobius  and  Lactan- 
Tius.  And  thenceforward  to  370,  while  some  of  the 
fathers  taught  endless  punishment,  and  others  anni- 
hilation, the  doctrine  of  most  is  not  stated.  One 
fact,  however,  is  conspicuous:  though  all  kinds  of 
heresy  were  attacked,  Universalism  was  not  consid- 
ered sufficiently  heretical  to  entitle  it  to  censure.  ^^ 

iiAccording  to  Reuss  "The  doctrine  of  a  general  restoration  of  all  ra- 
tional creatures  has  been  recommended  by  very  many  of  the  greatest  think- 
ers of  the  ancient  church  and  of  modern  times." 


XII. 

THE  EULOGISTS  OF  ORIGEN. 

This  chief  Universalist  of  the  centuries  imme- 
diately succeeding  the  apostles  was,  by  general  con- 
sent, the  most  erudite  and  saintly  of  all  the  Christian 
fathers.  Historians,  scholars,  critics,  men  of  all 
shades  of  thought  and  opinion  emulate  one  another 
in  exalting  his  name,  and  praising  his  character. 
This  volume  could  be  filled  with  their  eulogiums. 
Says  one  of  the  most  judicious  historians:  "If  any 
man  deserves  to  stand  first  in  the  catalogue  of  saints 
and  martyrs,  and  to  be  annually  held  up  as  an  exam- 
ple to  Christians,  this  is  the  man,  for  except  the 
apostles  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  their  companions,  I 
know  of  no  one  among  all  those  enrolled  and  honored 
as  saints  who  excel  him  in  virtue  and  holiness. "  ^  A 
discriminating  critic  declares:  "  His  work  upon  the 
text  of  Scripture  alone  would  entitle  Origen  to  undy- 
ing gratitude.  There  has  been  no  truly  great  man 
in  the  church  who  did  not  love  him  a  little."  ^  Bun- 
sen  remarks:  "  Origen's  death  is  the  real  end  of  free 
Christianity,  and  in  particular,  of  free  intellectual 
theology."  ^ 

The  learned  author  of  "The  Martyrs  and  Apolo- 

'Mosheim,  Hist.  Com.  in  Christ,  before  Constantine,  ii,  p.  149. 
^Christ.  Plat,  of  Ale.x.,  p.  303. 
3Hipp,  and  his  Age,  pp.  285,  286. 

I8l 


i82     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

gists"  truthfully  observes:     "  Origen  never  swerved 
from  this  Christian  magnanimity,  and 
The  Tributes  he  remains  the  model  of  the  theo- 

of  Scholars.  logian  persecuted  by    haughty  big- 

otry. Gentle  as  Fenelon  under  hier- 
archical anathemas,  he  maintained  his  convictions 
without  faltering,  and  neither  retracted  nor  rebelled. 
We  may  well  say  with  the  candid  Tillemont  that  al- 
though such  a  man  might  hold  heretical  opinions  he 
could  not  be  a  heretic,  since  he  was  utterly  free  from 
that  spirit  which  constitutes  the  guilt  of  heresy."* 
Canon  Westcott  writes :  ' '  He  examines  with  a  rev- 
erence, an  insight,  a  grandeur  of  feeling  never  sur- 
passed, the  questions  of  the  inspiration  and  the 
interpretation  of  the  Bible.  The  intellectual  value 
of  the  work  may  best  be  characterized  by  one 
fact:  a  single  sentence  taken  from  it  was  quoted 
by  Butler  as  containing  the  germ  of  his  'Anal- 
ogy.* After  sixteen  hundred  years  we  have  not 
yet  made  good  the  positions  which  he  marked  out 
as  belonging  to  the  domain  of  Christian  philoso- 
phy. *  *  *  His  whole  life  was  'one  iinbroken 
prayer '  to  use  his  own  language  of  what  an  ideal  life 
should  be. "  ^  The  sober  historian  Lardner  records 
only  a  candid  appreciation  of  the  man  when  he  says : 
"He  had  the  happiness  of  uniting  different  accom- 
plishments, being  at  once  the  greatest  preacher  and 
the  most  learned  and  voluminous  writer  of  the  age; 
nor  is  it  easy  to  say  which  is  most  admirable,  his 
learning  or  his  virtue."^      Plumptre  vies  with  Ori- 


4Bunsen,  pp.  326,  327. 

^Essays,  pp.  236-252. 

aCred.  Gos.  Hist..  Vol.  II.  p.  486. 


THE  EULOGISTS  OF  ORIGEN.  183 

gen's  other  eulogists,  and  Farrar  in  all  his  remark- 
able books  can  never  say  enough  in  his  praise.  A 
brief  extract  from  him  will  suffice:  "The  greatest 
of  all  the  fathers,  the  most  apostolic  man  since  the 
days  of  the  apostles,  the  father  who  on  every  branch 
of  study  rendered  to  the  church  the  deepest  and 
widest  services — the  immortal  Origen.  *  *  * 
The  first  writer,  the  profoundest  thinker,  the  great- 
est educator,  the  most  laborious  critic,  the  most  hon- 
ored preacher,  the  holiest  confessor  of  his  age.  We 
know  of  no  man  in  the  whole  Christian  era,  except 
St.  Paul,  who  labored  so  incessantly,  and  rendered 
to  the  church  such  inestimable  services.  We  know 
of  no  man,  except  St.  Paul,  who  had  to  suffer  from 
such  black  and  bitter  ingratitude.  He,  the  con- 
verter of  the  heathen,  the  strengthener  of  the  mar- 
tyrs, the  profoundest  of  Christian  teachers,  the 
greatest  and  most  learned  of  the  interpreters  of 
Scripture — he  to  whom  kings  and  bishops  and  phi- 
losophers had  been  proud  to  listen — he  who  had  re- 
futed the  ablest  of  all  the  assailants  of  Christianity 
— he  who  had  founded  the  first  school  of  Biblical 
exegesis  and  Biblical  philology — he  who  had  done 
more  for  the  honor  and  the  knowledge  of  the  Ora- 
cles of  God  not  only  than  all  his  assailants  (for  that 
is  not  saying  much),  but  than  all  the  then  bishops 
and  writers  of  the  church  put  together — he  who  had 
known  the  Scriptures  from  infancy,  who  had  vainly 
tried  to  grasp  in  boyhood  the  crown  of  martyrdom, 
who  had  been  the  honored  teacher  of  saints,  who 
had  been  all  his  life  long  a  confessor — he  in  the  very 
errors  of  whose  life  was  more  of  nobleness  than  in 
the  whole  lives  of  his  assailants, — who  had  lived  a 


i84     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

life  more  apostolic,  who  did  more  and  suffered  more 
for  the  truth  of  Christ  than  any  man  after  the  first 
century  of  our  era,  and  whose  accurately  measurable 
services  stand  all  but  unapproachable  by  all  the  cen- 
turies— I,  for  one,  will  never  mention  the  name  of 
Origen  without  the  love,  and  the  admiration,  and 
the  reverence  due  to  one  of  the  greatest  and  one  of 
the  best  of  the  saints  of  God.  " 

Even  modern  Catholics — in  spite  of  the  ban  of 
pope  and  council — join  the  great  army  of  Origen's  eu- 
logists.    Says  the  "Catholic  World:" 

"Alexandria,  the  cradle  of  Eastern  genius  at  that 
time,  became  the  Christian  Thermopylae,  and  Origen 
the  Christian  Leonidas.  It  was  he 
A  Catholic  who  headed  the  forces,  and,   by  the 

Eulogy.  splendor  of  his  genius,   prepared  in 

his  school  illustrious  men  to  lead  on 
the  van.  He  vindicated  the  truth  from  calumny, 
supported  it  by  facts,  disengaged  it  from  the  soph- 
isms in  which  enemies  had  obscured  it,  and  held  it  up 
to  view  in  all  its  natural  beauty  and  attraction.  *  * 
Heathens  were  delighted  with  his  language,  full  of 
unction  and  charm,  and  the  literati  of  the  age,  who 
had  been  lost  in  the  intricacies  of  Aristotle,  the  ob- 
scurities of  Plato,  and  the  absurdities  of  Epicurus, 
wondered  at  the  young  Christian  philosopher. "  ^ 

Referring  to  the  hard  words  that  most  advocates 
of  universal  redemption  who  are  past  middle  life 
have  received,  Rev.  Edward  Beecher,  D.  D.  ,  de- 
clares, in  his  "History  of  the  Doctrine  of  Future  Retri- 
bution:" "An  evil  spirit  was  developed  at  that  time 

'April,  1874. 


THE  EULOGISTS  OF  ORIGEN.  185 

in  putting  down  Origen  which  has  ever  since  poi- 
soned the  church  of  all  denominations.  It  has  been  as 
a  leprosy  in  all  Christendom.  Nor  is  this  all :  meas- 
ures were  then  resorted  to  for  the  suppression  of 
error  which  exerted  a  deadly  hostility  against  all 
free  investigation,  from  the  influence  of  which  the 
church  universal  has  not  yet  recovered. " 

The  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  article  Origen, 
(Prof.  Adolf  Harnack),  voices  the  conclusions  of  the 
scholarly  world: 

"Of  all  the  theologians  of  the  ancient  church, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  Augustine,  Origen  is 
the  most  distinguished  and  the  most  influential.  He 
is  the  father  of  the  church's  science;  he  is  the  founder 
of  a  theology  which  was  brought  to  perfection  in  the 
Fourth  and  Fifth  Centuries,  and  which  still  retained 
the  stamp  of  his  genius  when  in'  the  Sixth  Century 
it  disowned  its  author.  It  was  Origen  who  created 
the  dogmatic  of  the  church  and  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  scientific  criticism  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments. He  could  not  have  been  what  he  was  unless 
two  generations  before  him  had  labored  at  the  prob- 
lem of  finding  an  intellectual  expression  and  a  philo- 
sophic basis  for  Christianity:  (Justin,  Tatian,  Athe- 
nagoras,  Pantaenus,  Clement.)  But  their  attempts, 
in  comparison  with  his,  are  like  a  schoolboy's 
essays  beside  the  finished  work  of  a  master. 
*  *  *  By  proclaiming  the  reconciliation  of 
science  with  the  Christian  faith,  of  the  high- 
est culture  with  the  Gospel,  Origen  did  more 
than  any  other  man  to  win  the  Old  World  to 
the  Christian  religion.  But  he  entered  into  no 
diplomatic  compromises ;  it  was  his  deepest  and  most 


i86     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

solemn  conviction  that  the  sacred  oracles  of  Christen- 
dom embraced  all  the  ideals  of  antiquity.  His  char- 
acter was  as  transparent  as  his  life  was  blameless; 
there  are  few  church  fathers  whose  biography  leaves 
so  pure  an  impression  on  the  reader.  The  atmos- 
phere around  him  was  a  dangerous  one  for  a  philoso- 
pher and  theologian  to  breathe,  but  he  kept  his  spir- 
itual health  unimpaired  and  even  his  sense  of  truth 
suffered  less  injury  than  was  the  case  with  most  of 
his  contemporaries.  *  *  *  Orthodox  theology 
has  never,  in  any  of  the  confessions,  ventured  beyond 
the  circle  which  the  mind  of  Origen  first  measured 
out. " 

We  conclude  these  eulogies,  which  might  be  mul- 
tiplied indefinitely,  by  giving  the  high  authority  of 

Max  MiJLLER:  "  Origen  was  as  hon- 
Fourth  Century  .  /~vv    •   .  •  i.  i  • 

...  ,..,/,  est  as  a  Christian  as  he  was  as  a  phi- 
Universahsts  Ideal  ^ 

Christians.  losopher,     and   it   was   this    honesty 

which  made  Christianity  victorious  in 
the  Third  Century,  and  will  make  it  victorious  again 
whenever  it  finds  supporters  who  are  determined  not 
to  sacrifice  their  philosophical  convictions  to  their  re- 
ligious faith  or  their  religious  faith  to  their  philo- 
sophical convictions.  *  *  *  If  we  consider  the 
time  in  which  he  lived,  and  study  the  testimony 
which  his  contemporaries  bore  of  his  character,  we 
may  well  say  of  him,  as  of  others  who  have  been  mis- 
judged by  posterity: 

'  Denn  wer  den  Besten  seiner  Zeit  genug  gelebt, 
Der  hat  genug  gelebt  f  iir  alle  Zeiten.'  "  8 

If  any  man  since  the  death  of  Paul  should  rank 

8Theos.  or  Psych.  Rel.  Lect.  XIII. 


THE  EULOGISTS  OF  ORIGEN.  187 

as  the  patron  saint  of  the  Universalist  church,  it  is 
the  greatest  and  best  of  all  the  ancient  fathers,  Ori- 

GEN  AdAMANTIUS. 

Note.— It  has  been  asserted  that  Ori^en  did  not  actually  teach  the  ulti- 
mate salvation  of  all  souls,  because  he  insisted  that  the  human  will  is  eter- 
nally free,  and  therefore  it  is  argued  that  he  must  have  held  that  souls  may 
repent  and  be  saved,  and  sin  and  fall  forever.  But  this  is  not  true,  for  Ori- 
gan taught  that  at  some  period  in  the  future,  love  and  holiness  will  be  so 
absorbed  by  all  souls  that,  though,  theoretically,  they  will  be  free,  they  will 
so  will  that  lapse  will  be  impossible.  Jerome,  Justinian,  Dr.  Pond,  and 
others  are  explicitly  confuted  by  the  great  scholar  and  saint.  In  his  com- 
ments on  Romans  vi:  9,  10,  he  says:  "The  apostle  decides,  by  an  absolute 
decision,  that  now  Christ  dies  no  more,  in  order  that  those  who  live  together 
with  him  may  be  secure  of  the  endlessness  of  their  life.  *  *  *  Free-will 
indeed  remains,  but  the  power  of  the  cross  suffices  for  all  orders,  and  all 
ages,  past  and  to  come.  And  that  free-will  will  not  lead  to  sin,  is  plain,  be- 
cause love  never  faileth,  and  when  God  is  loved  with  all  the  heart,  and  soul, 
and  mind,  and  strength,  and  our  neighbor  as  ourselves,  where  is  the  place 
for  sin?"  In  his  great  work  "  De  Principiis,"  he  declares:  "  The  nature  of 
this  body  of  ours  will  be  changed  into  the  glory  of  a  spiritual  body,  in  which 
state  we  are  to  believe  that  it  will  remain  always  and  immutably  by  the  will 
of  the  Creator,"  etc.  Though  Origen  insisted  that  the  human  will  must 
forever  be  free,  he  did  not  admit  that  the  soul  could  abuse  its  freedom 
by  continuing  forever  to  lapse  into  sin. 


XIII. 

A  THIRD  CENTURY  GROUP. 

While  we  mourn  that  so  little  of  the  literature  of 
the  early  days  of  our  religion  remains,  the  wonder  is 
that  we  have  so  much,  rather  than  so  little.  The 
persecutions  of  Decius  and  Diocletian — especially 
of  the  latter — were  most  unrelenting  towards  Chris- 
tian books.^  "The  volumes  which  escaped  from  the 
perils  of  those  days  were  like  brands  snatched  from 
the  fire."  "A  little  dust — precious,  indeed,  as  gold — 
in  a  few  sepulchral  urns,  is  all  that  now  remains." 
And  later,  the  burning  of  the  Alexandrine  library  by 
the  Arabs,  the  destructive  persecutions  of  heretics, 
the  ban  of  council,  and  the  curse  of  pope  and  priest, 
in  the  church's  long  eclipse,  destroyed  innumerable 
volumes,  so  that  there  is  ample  reason  to  believe 
that,  could  we  inspect  all  that  Clement,  Origen  and 
others  wrote,  in  the  original  Greek,  untampered 
with,  we  should  have  pages  where  we  now  have  sen- 
tences avowing  Universalism.  Occasionally  an  an- 
cient volume  is  yet  found,  accidentally  buried,  as 
was  the  Philosophumena  of  Hippolytus,  formerly 
attributed  to  Origen,  discovered  by  a  learned  Greek 
in  a  monastery  on  Mount  Athos,  in  the  year  1842. 
Of  the  ten  books  contained  in  the  volume,  the  sec- 

»VVordsworth's  St.  Hippolytus  and  the  Church  of  Rome,  p.  144. 

i88 


A  THIRD  CENTURY  GROUP.  189 

ond,  the  third,  and  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  are 
gone. 

HiPPOLYTUS. 

HippoLYTus  (about  A.  D.  220)  enumerates  and 
comments  on  thirty- two  heresies,  but  imiversal  res- 
toration is  not  named  among  them,^  And  yet,  Cle- 
ment of  Alexandria,  and  Origen — then  living — were 
everywhere  regarded  as  the  great  teachers  of  the 
church,  and  their  view  of  man's  future  destiny  was 
generally  prevalent,  according  to  Augustine,  Jerome 
and  others.  It  could  not  then  have  been  regarded 
as  a  "heresy  "  or  Hippolytus  would  have  named  it. 
What  a  force  there  is  in  the  fact  that  not  one  of  those 
who  wrote  against  the  heresies  of  their  times  ever 
name  universal  salvation  as  one  of  them !  Hippoly- 
tus mentions  thirty-two.  Epiphanius  wrote  his 
Panarion  and  epitomized  it  in  his  Anacephalaeosis 
or  Recapitulation,  but  not  one  of  the  heresy-hunters 
includes  our  faith  in  his  maledictions.  Can  there  be 
stronger  evidence  than  this  fact  that  the  doctrine  was 
not  then  heretical? 

It  is  curious  to  notice  how  the  mind  of  a  theolo- 
gian can  be  prejudiced.     Dean  Wordsworth  in  his 

translation  of  Hippolytus  gives  the 
Dean  Words-  language   of   that   contemporary    of 

worth's  Error.          Origen,  to  show  that  the  former  had 

no  sympathy  with  the  broad  faith  of 
the  latter.  He  quotes  Hippolytus  thus:  "The 
coming  malediction  of  the  judgment  of  fire,  and  the 
dark  and  rayless  aspect  of  tartarus,  not  irradiated  by 

*Philosophumena  or  Refutation  of  Heresy. 


igo    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

the  voice  of  the  Word,  and  the  surge  of  the  ever- 
flowing  lake,  generating  fire,  and  the  eye  of  tarta- 
rean  avenging  angels  ever  fixed  in  malediction,"  etc. 
The  Dean  unwarrantably,  because  inaccurately, 
translates  kolaston  "avenging,"  a  meaning  it  does 
not  possess.  It  is  rendered  punish,  chastise,  correct, 
but  never  carries  the  sense  of  revenge.  Further- 
more, disregarding  the  fact  that  the  acknowledged 
Universalist  fathers  denounce  the  sinner  with  words 
as  intense  as  is  the  above  language,  which  may  be 
literally  fulfilled  and  yet  restoration  ensue  beyond  it 
all,  the  Dean  renders  the  very  next  paragraph  thus: 
"You  will  have  your  body  immortal  {aQa.va.Tov) 
and  incorruptible  {a4>0apTov) ,  together  with  your 
soul"  (i/'vx^,  life).  Now  had  Hippolytus  intended 
to  teach  the  absolutely  interminable  duration  of  the 
"tartarean  fire,"  would  he  not  have  used  these 
stronger  terms,  aphtharton  and  athaiiaton,  which  are 
never  employed  in  the  New  Testament  to  teach  lim- 
ited duration,  and  is  not  the  fact  that  he  used  the 
weaker  word  to  describe  punishment,  evidence  that 
he  did  not  in  this  passage  in  the  "Philosophumena" 
intend  to  teach  the  sinner's  endless  torment? 

Not  less  surprising  is  the  language  of  Dean 
Wordsworth,  and  his  misreading  of  the  facts  of  his- 
tory, when  he  comments  on  the  harsh  and  bitter 
tone  of  Hippolytus,  in  his  treatment  of  heretics,  in 
the  "Philosophumena."  Contrasting  the  acrid  temper 
of  Hippolytus  with  the  sweetness  of  Origen,  Dean 
Wordsworth  says: 

"The  opinion  of  Origen  with  regard  to  future 
punishments  is  well  known.  The  same  feelings 
which  induced  him  to  palliate  the  errors  of  heretics, 


A  THIRD  CENTURY  GROUP.  191 

beguiled  him  into  exercising  his  ingenuity  in  tam- 
pering with  the  declarations  of  Scripture  concerning 
the  eternal  duration  of  the  future  punishment  of  sin. 
Thus  false  charity  betrayed  him  into  heresy."^ 

This  is  a  sad  reversal  of  cause  and  effect.  Why 
not  say  that  the  sublime  fact  of  God's  goodness  re- 
sulting in  universal  salvation,  created  in  Origen's 
heart  that  generous  charity  and  divine  sweetness  that 
caused  him  to  look  with  pity  rather  than  with  anger 
on  human  error,  in  imitation  of  the  God  he  wor- 
shiped ? 

Theophilus. 

Theophilus  of  Antioch,  who  wrote  about  A.  D. 
180,  and  was  bishop  of  Antioch,  speaks  of  aionian 
torments,  and  aionian  fire,  but  he  must  have  used 
the  terms  as  did  Origen  and  the  other  ancient  Uni- 
versalists,  for  he  says:  "For  just  as  a  vessel  which, 
after  it  has  been  made,  has  some  flaw,  is  remade  or 
remolded,  that  it  may  become  new  and  bright,  so  it 
comes  to  man  by  death  For  in  some  way  or  other 
he  is  broken  up,  that  he  may  come  forth  in  the  res- 
urrection whole,  I  mean  spotless,  and  righteous,  and 
immortal."* 

Tertullian. 

Tertullian  (Quintus  Septimius  Florens  Tertul- 
lianus)  was  born  in  Carthage,  Africa,  about  A.  D. 
160,  and  died  A.  D.  220.  He  had  a  fine  Pagan  edu- 
cation in   Roman   law   and    rhetoric,    but  lived    a 


^Hippolytus  followed  up  at  Rome  the  Alexandrine  doctrine  and  position 
of  Pantaenus  and  Clemens,  and  was  the  predecessor  of  Origen,  etc. 
Bunsen. 

*Ad  Autolicum,  lib.  II,  cap.  26,  Vol.  VI,  Migne's  Patrologiae. 


192     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

heathen  into  mature  manhood,  and  confesses  that 
his  life  had  been  one  of  vice  and  licentiousness.* 
Converted  to  Christianity  he  became  in  later  years 
a  presbyter.  He  lived  a  moral  and  religious  life  af- 
ter his  conversion,  but  the  heathen  doctrines  he  re- 
tained rendered  his  spirit  harsh  and  bitter.  About 
A.  D.  202  he  joined  the  Montanists,  a  schismatic,  as- 
cetic sect.  Those  who  sympathized  with  him  were 
known  as  Tertullianists  as  late  as  the  Fifth  Century. 
His  abilities  were  great,  but,  as  Schaff  says,  he  was 
the  opposite  of  the  equally  genial,  less  vigorous, 
but  more  learned  and  comprehensive  Origen. 

Tertullian  was  the  first    of   the  Africo-Latin 
writers  who  commanded  the  public  ear,  and  there  is 

strong  ground  for  supposing  that 
Advocates  End-  since  Tertullian  quotes  the  sacred 
less  Torment.  writings   perpetually  and  copiously, 

the  earliest  of  those  many  Latin  ver- 
sions noticed  by  Augustine  and  on  which  Jerome 
grounded  his  vulgate,  were  African.  *  *  *  < 'Af- 
rica, not  Rome,  gave  birth  to  Latin  Christianity." 
A  learned  writer  states:  "His  own  authority  is 
small,  he  was  not  a  sound  divine,  became  heterodox, 
and  fell  away  into  one  of  the  heresies  of  his  times."® 
The  fountain  of  Paganism  in  the  heart  of  Tertul- 
lian discharged  its  noxious  waters  into  into  the  lar- 
ger reservoir  in  the  mighty  brain  of  Augustine,  and 
thence  in  the  Sixth  Century  it  submerged  Christen- 
dom with  a  deluge  that  lasted  for  a  thousand  years, 
— now    happily    subsiding,    to  give  place  to  those 

^De  resur.  earn.,  chap  59.    "Ego  me  scio  neque  alia  carne  adulteria 
commisse,  neque  nunc  alia  carne  ad  continentian  eniti." 
«Oxford  Tracts  for  the  Times,  No.  XVII. 


A  THIRD  CENTURY  GROUP  193 

primal  Christian  truths  that  were  in  the  hearts  of 
Clement  and  Origen.  Tertullian  and  Origen 
were  as  unlike  as  the  churches  they  represent, — the 
Latin  and  the  Greek.  Narrow,  Pagan,  cruel,  un- 
christian, the  dark  path  of  the  Tertullian- Augustine 
type  of  Christianity  through  the  centuries  is  strewn 
with  the  wrecks  of  ignorance  and  sorrow.  He  re- 
tained his  heathen  notions  and  gave  them  a  Christian 
label.  He  makes  the  Underworld,  like  the  heathen, 
divided  by  an  impassable  gulf  into  two  parts.  The 
abode  of  the  righteous  is  sinus  Abrahcs,  that  of  the 
wicked  ignis  or  inferi.  Tertullian  was  probably 
the  first  of  the  fathers  to  assert  that  the  torments  of 
the  lost  will  be  of  equal  duration  with  the  happiness 
of  the  saved.  "God  will  recompense  his  worshipers 
with  life  eternal;  and  cast  the  profane  into  a  fire 
equally  perpetual  and  unintermitted.  " ' 

In  Tertullian's  Apology  are  fifty  arguments  for 
the  Christian  religion,  but  not  once  does  he  state 
that  endless  punishment  was  one  of  the  doctrines  of 
the  church.  He  seems  to  have  been  half- inclined  to 
the  truth,  for  he  speaks  of  the  sinner  as  being  able, 
after  death,  to  pay  "the  uttermost  farthing." 

Tertullian  illustrates  the  effect  of  the  doctrine 
he  advocated  in  his  almost  infernal  exultations  over 
the  future  torments  of  the  enemies  of  the  church. 
"  How  I  shall  admire,  how  I  shall  laugh,  how  exult," 
he  cries  with  fiendish  glee,  "to  see  the  torments  of 
the  wicked."  *  *  *  "I  shall  then  have  a  better 
chance  of  hearing  the  tragedians  call  louder  in  their 
own  distress ;  of  seeing  the  actors  more  lively  in  the 

^ApoL,  cap.  18. 


194    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

dissolving  flame;  of  beholding-  the  charioteer  glow- 
ing in  his  fiery  chariot;  of  seeing  their  wrestlers  toss- 
ing on  fiery  waves  instead  of  in  their  gymnasium, " 
etc.  8  Referring  to  the  "  spectacles  "  he  anticipates, 
he  says:  "  Faith  grants  us  to  enjoy  them  even  now, 
by  lively  anticipation ;  but  what  shall  the  reality  be 
of  those  things  which  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 
heard,  nor  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to 
conceive?  They  may  well  compensate,  surely,  the 
circus  and  both  amphitheatres  and  all  the  spectacles 
the  world  can  offer."  No  wonder  DePressense  says, 
"This  joy  in  the  anticipation  of  the  doom  of  the  ene- 
mies of  Christ  is  altogether  alien  to  the  spirit  of  the 
Gospel ;  that  mocking  laugh,  ringing  across  the  abyss 
which  opens  to  swallow  up  the  persecutors,"  etc. 
But  why  "alien,"  if  a  God  of  love  ordained,  and 
the  gentle  Christ  executes,  the  appalling  doom? 
Was  not  Tertullian  nearer  the  mood  a  Christian 
should  cultivate  than  are  those  who  are  shocked  by 
his  description,  if  it  is  true?  Max  Mxjller  calls  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  Tertullian  and  the  Latin 
fathers  were  obliged  to  cripple  the  Greek  Christian 
thought  by  being  destitute  of  even  words  to  express 
it.  He  has  to  use  two  words,  verbum  and  ratio,  to 
express  Logos.  "  Not  having  Greek  tools  to  work 
with, "he  says,  "his  verbal  picture  often  becomes 
blurred. " 

Hase  says  that  Tertullian  was  a  "  gloomy,  fiery 
character,  who  conquered  for  Christianity,  out  of  the 
Punic  Latin,  a  literature  in  which  ingenious  rhetoric, 
a  wild  imagination,  a  gross,  sensuous  perception  of 

8Quid  admirer?  quid  rideam?  ubi  gaudeam,  ubi  exsultem,  spectans  tot 
ettantos.etc.    De  Spectaculis.  xxx. 


A  THIRD  CENTURY  GROUP.  195 

the  ideal,   profound  feeling,  and  a  juridical  under- 
standing struggled  with  each  other. " 

Ambrose  of  Alexandria. 

Ambrose  of  Alexandria,  A.  D.  180-250,  was  of  a 
noble  and  wealthy  family.  Meeting  O  rig  en  he  ac- 
cepted Christianity  as  taught  by  the  magister  orien- 
tis,  and  urged  and  stimulated  his  great  teacher  to 
write  his  many  books,  and  used  his  fortune  to  further 
them.  Thus  we  owe  generally,  it  is  said,  nearly  all 
the  exegetical  works  of  Origen  to  Ambrose's  influ- 
ence and  money;  and  especially  his  commentary  on 
St.  John.  It  was  at  his  request  also  that  Origen 
composed  his  greatest  work,  the  answer  to  Celsus. 
He  left  no  writings  of  his  own  except  some  letters, 
but  his  devotedness  to  Origen,  and  his  agency  in 
promoting  the  publication  of  his  works,  should  con- 
vince us  that  Origen's  views  are  substantially  his 
own.^ 

The  Manich^eans. 

The  Manichaeans,  followers  of  Mani,  were  a  con- 
siderable sect  that  had  a  following  over  a  large  part 
of  Christendom  from  A.  D.  277  to  500.  Eusebius  is 
very  bitter  in  describing  the  sect  and  its  founder. 
"He  was  a  madman,"  and  his  "ism,  patched  up  of 
many  faults  and  impious  heresies,  long  since  extinct. " 
Socrates  calls  it  "a kind  of  heathenish  Christianity," 
and  says  it  is  composed  of  a  union  of  Christianity 
with  the  doctrines  of  Empedocles  and  Pythagoras. 
Lardner  quotes  the  evident  misrepresentations  of 
Eusebius  and  Socrates  and  exposes  their  inaccura- 

•Euseb.  Hist.  Eccl.  B.  vi. 


196    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

cies.  A  large  amount  of  literature  was  expended  on 
some  of  their  doctrines,  but  not  on  their  denial  of 
endless  torment.  In  fact,  Didymus  the  Blind,  as 
well  as  Augustine,  seems  to  have  opposed  their  er- 
rors, though  the  "merciful  doctor"  gives  them,  as 
Lardner  says,  "no hard  names,"  while  the  father  of 
Calvinism  treats  them  with  characteristic  severity, 
ignoring  what  he  himself  acknowledges  elsewhere, 
that  for  eight  or  nine  years  he  accepted  their  tenets. 
Referring  to  the  vile  practices  and  doctrines  with 
which  they  are  charged,  Lardner  says:  "The 
thing  is  altogether  incredible,  especially  when  re- 
lated of  people  who  by  profession  were  Christians ; 
who  believed  that  Jesus  Christ  was  a  perfect  model 
of  all  virtues;  who  acknowledged  the  reasonableness 
and  excellence  of  the  precepts  of  the  Gospel,  and 
that  the  essence  of  religion  lies  in  obeying  them." 
The  consensus  of  ancient  authorities  proves  the 
Manichaeans  to  have  been  an  unpopular  but  reputa- 
ble Christian  sect. 

Mani  was  a  Persian,  a  scholar,   and  a  Christian. 
Beginning  his    debate   with  Archelaus,   he    says: 

"I,  brethren,  am  a  disciple  and  an 
Manichsan  apostle    of  Jesus   Christ;"    and     he 

Doctrines,  and   his  followers  everywhere  claim 

to  be  disciples  of  our  Lord.  Among 
their  dogmas,  was  one  that  denied  endless  exist- 
ence to  the  devil,  who  was  then  considered 
to  be  almost  the  fourth  person  in  the  popular 
Godhead, — they  repiidiated  the  resurrection  of  the 
body  and  clearly  taught  universal  restoration.  Lard- 
ner quotes  Mani  in  his  dispute  with  Archelaus,  as 
saying :     '  'All  sorts  of  souls  will  be  saved,  and  the 


A  THIRD  CENTURY  GROUP.  197 

lost  sheep  will  be  brought  back  to  the  fold."  And 
after  quoting  their  adversaries  as  stating  that  the 
Manichaeans  taught  the  eternity  of  hell  torments, 
Lardner  says,  quoting  Beausobre:  "All  which 
means  no  more  than  a  privation  of  happiness,  or  a 
labor  and  task,  rather  than  a  punishment.  Indeed  it 
is  reasonable  to  think  the  Manichaeans  should  allow 
but  very  few,  if  any,  souls  to  be  lost  and  perish  for- 
ever. That  could  not  be  reckoned  honorable  to  the 
Deity,  considering  how  souls  were  sent  into  matter."^*' 
Lardner  is  certainly  within  bounds  when  he  says : 
"But  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  believed  the  eter- 
nity  of  hell  torments." 

The  astonishing  way  in  which,  as  Wendell  Phil- 
lips once  said,  "what  passes  for  history, " is  written, 

may  be  seen  in  Professor  William  G. 
Prof.  Shedd's  His-  T.  Shedd's  "History  of  Christian  Doc- 
torical  Inaccuracy,   trine."    He  says:    *' The  punishment 

inflicted  upon  the  lost  was  regarded 
by  the  fathers  of  the  ancient  church,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  as  endless.  *  *  *  The  only  excep- 
tion to  the  belief  in  the  eternity  of  future  punish- 
ment in  the  ancient  church  appears  in  the  Alexan- 
drine school.  Their  denial  of  the  doctrine  sprang 
logically  out  of  their  anthropology.  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  and  Origen,  we  have  seen,  asserted  with 
great  earnestness  the  tenet  of  a  plenary  and  inalien- 
able power  in  the  human  will  to  overcome  sin.  The 
destiny  of  the  soul  is  thus  placed  in  the  soul  itself. 
The  power  of  free  will  cannot  be  lost,  and  if  not  ex- 
erted in  this  world,  it  still  can  be  in  the  next ;  and 

wBeausobre,  Hist,  de  Manich.  1,9,  chs.  7-9.    See  the  remarkable  quota- 
tions concerning  Mani  in  Lardner  Vol.  III. 


igS    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

under  the  full  light  of  the  eternal  world;  and  undei 
the  stimulus  of  suffering-  there  experienced,  nothing 
is  more  probable  than  that  it  will  be  exerted.  The 
views  of  Origen  were  almost  wholly  confined  to  this 
school.  Faint  traces  of  a  belief  in  the  remission  of 
punishments  in  the  future  world  are  visible  in  the 
writings  of  Didymus  of  Alexandria,  and  in  Gregory 
of  Nyssa.  *  *  *  With  these  exceptions,  the  an- 
cient church  held  that  the  everlasting  destiny  of  the 
human  soul  is  decided  in  this  earthly  state. "  ^^  The 
reader  who  will  turn  to  the  sketches  of  Didymus  and 
Gregory  will  discover  what  Prof.  Shedd  denominates 
"faint  traces,"  and  in  the  multitudes  of  quotations 
from  others  of  the  fathers  who  were  not  of  the  Alex- 
andrine school,  he  will  see  how  utterly  inaccurate  is 
this  religious  historian.  Numerous  quotations  flatly 
contradict  his  assertion.  The  verbal  resemblance  or 
Dr.  Shedd's  language  to  that  of  Hagenbach,  cannot 
be  wholly  due  to  accident.  ^^  Prof.  Shedd,  however, 
contradicts  what  Schaff  and  Hagenbach  declare  to 
be  the  truth  of  history.  He  says  that  the  Alex- 
andrine school  was  the  only  exception  to  a  univer- 
sal belief  in  endless  punishment,  except  the  faint 
traces  in  Gregory  of  Nyssa;  while  Hagenbach  insists 
that  Gregory  is  more  explicit,  and  Neander  afSrms 
that  the  school  of  Antioch  as  well  as  that  of  Alexan- 
dria, were  Universalistic.  Furthermore,  Prof.  Shedd 
does  not  seem  to  have  remembered  the  words  he  had 
written  with  his  own  pen  in  his  translation  of  Guer- 
ike's  Church  History :^^     "It  is  noticeable  that  the 

"Vol.  II,  pp.  414-416. 

J2Hist.  Doct.  II,  Sec.  142.    Edin.  Ed.  1884. 

isp.  349,  note. 


A  THIRD  CENTURY  GROUP.  199 

exegetico-grammatical  school  of  Antioch,  as  well  as 
the  allegorizing  Alexandrian,  adopted  and  maintained 
the  doctrine  of  restoration."  Says  Hagenbach, 
"Some  faint  traces  of  a  belief  in  the  final  remission 
of  punishments  in  the  world  to  come  are  to  be  found 
in  those  writings  of  Didymus  of  Alexandria,  which 
are  yet  extant.  *  *  *  Gregory  of  Nyssa  speaks 
more  distinctly  upon  this  point,  pointing  out  the  cor- 
rective design  of  the  punishments  inflicted  upon 
the  wicked. "  Hagenbach  expressly  places  Greg- 
ory and  Didymus  as  differing,  while  Shedd  makes 
them  agree.  But  Neander  declares:  "From  two 
theological  schools  there  went  forth  an  opposition  to 
the  doctrine  of  everlasting  punishment,  which  had  its 
ground  in  a  deeper  Christian  interest ;  inasmuch  as 
the  doctrine  of  a  universal  restoration  was  closely 
connected  with  the  entire  dogmatic  systems  of  both 
these  schools,  namely,  that  of  Origen,  and  the 
school  of  Antioch."  " 

"Vol.  II.  p.  676. 


XIV. 

MINOR  AUTHORITIES. 

Among  the  celebrated  fathers  who  have  left  no 

record  of  their  views  of  human  destiny,   biit  who, 

from  their  positions,    and   the  rela- 

Several  Fathers.  ^^'^^^  ^^^^  sustained,  must,  beyond 
all  rational  doubt,  have  been  Univer- 
salists,  may  be  mentioned  Atheno- 
DORUS,  who  was  a  student  of  Origen's,  and  a  bishop 
in  Pontus;  Heraclas,  a  convert  of  Origen's,  his  as- 
sistant and  successor  in  the  school  at  Alexandria, 
and  bishop  of  Alexandria;  Firmilian,  a  scholar  of 
Origen's,  and  bishop  of  Caesarea;  and  Palladius, 
bishop  in  Asia  Minor. 

Firmilian,  though  he  wrote  little,  and  is  therefore 
not  much  known,  was  certainly  very  conspicuous  in 
his  day.  His  theology  may  be  gauged  from  the  fact 
that  "he  held  Origen  in  such  high  honor  that  he 
sometimes  invited  him  into  his  own  district  for  the 
benefit  of  the  churches,  and  even  journeyed  to  Judea 
to  visit  him,  spending  long  periods  of  time  with 
him  in  order  to  improve  in  his  knowledge  of  the- 
ology. "  *  He  was  a  warm  friend  of  Dionysius, 
Cyprian,  and  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  and  was 
chosen  president  of  the  Council  of  Antioch. 

Dionysius — styled  by  Eusebius  "the  great  bishop 

»Eusebius,  VI:.26. 

200 


MINOR  AUTHORITIES.  201 

of  Alexandria,"  born  A.   D.   195 — died  265 — became 
the  head  of  the  Catechetical  school 

in  Alexandria  A.    D.   231,  and  suc- 
Dionysius. 

ceeded  Heraclas  as  bishop  of  Alex- 
andria, A.  D.  248.  He  was  a  con- 
stant friend  of  Origen,  and  after  the  opposition  to 
him  had  begun,  Dionysius  addressed  him  **0n  Per- 
secution,"— A.  D.  259 — and  wrote  a  letter  in  his 
praise  after  his  death,  to  Theotecnus,  bishop  of 
Csesarea,  A.  D.  265.  Neale  says:  "The  loss  of 
the  writings  of  Dionysius  is  one  of  the  greatest  that 
had  been  suffered  by  ecclesiastical  history."^ 

Theognostus  and  Pierius  were  Alexandrine  cate- 
chists  after  the  death  of  Dionysius,  The  fact  that 
Photius  reprobates  the  doctrine,  while  he  praises 
the  eloquence,  of  Theognostus,  asdoes  Athanasius, 
indicates  that  these  eminent  scholars  were  of  the 
faith  of  their  master.  Pierius,  in  fact,  must  have 
been,  for  he  was  called  the  "Second  Origen,"  (Ori- 
genes  Junior). 

Gregory  Thaumaturgus — A.  D.  210-270 — in 
his  panegyric  on  Origen,  ascribes  his  own  intellectual 
and  religious  birth  and  life  to  his  master,  and  gives 
the  best  description  extant  of  the  methods  and  abil- 
ity of  that  most  eminent  of  all  the  Christian  teachers 
and  fathers.  Their  mutual  regard  is  shown  by  sur- 
viving letters  from  both.  If  nothing  were  in  exist- 
ence from  Gregory,  expressive  of  his  Universalian 
sentiments,  the  fact  that  he  was  Origen's  pupil  for 
five  years,  and  delivered  his  famous  encomium  on 
his  teacher,  would  go  far  to  establish  his  acceptance 

SHoly  Eastern  Church,  I:  84.  Eusebius  repeatedly  speaks  of  him  in  the 
loftiest  terms. 


202    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTUKIES. 

of  the  doctrine.  He  says:  "My  guardian  angel,  on 
our  arrival  at  Csesarea,  handed  us  over  to  the  care 
and  tuition  of  Origen,  that  leader  of  all,  who  speaks 
in  undertones  to  God's  dear  prophets,  and  suggests 
to  them  all  their  prophecy  and  their  mystic  and  di- 
vine word,  has  so  honored  this  man  Origen  as  a 
friend,  as  to  appoint  him  to  be  their  interpreter." 
As  Origen  spoke,  Gregory  tells  us  he  kindled  a  love 
"in  my  heart  I  had  not  known  before.  This  love  in- 
duced me  to  give  up  country  and  friends,  the  aims 
which  I  had  proposed  to  myself,  the  study  of  law  of 
which  I  was  proud.  I  had  but  one  passion,  one 
philosophy,  and  the  god-like  man  who  directed  me 
in  the  pursuit  of  it."  He  became  bishop  of  Csesarea, 
and  was  regarded  as  the  incarnation  of  the  ortho- 
doxy of  his  times.  Almost  nothing  of  his  writings 
has  survived,  but  Rufinus,  the  apologist  and  de- 
fender of  Origen,  gives  a  passage,  says  Allin,  show- 
ing that  he  taught  the  divine  truth  he  learned  from 
his  master. 

Pamphilus,  a.  D.  250-309,  was  one  of  the  great- 
est scholars  of  his  times.  He  founded  the  famous 
library  of  Csesarea,  which  contained  some  of  the  most 
ancient  codices  of  the  New  Testament,  and  also  Ori- 
gen's  books  in  their  original  Greek.  Pamphilus 
wrote  an  "Apology"  and  defense  of  Origen,  with 
whom  he  was  in  full  sympathy.  Eusebius  wrote  the 
biography  of  Pamphilus  in  three  books.  Unfortunately 
it  has  been  lost,  so  that  nothing  survives  of  the  works 
of  this  eminent  Christian  writer  and  scholar.  The  es- 
teem in  which  he  was  held  by  Eusebius  may  be 
gauged  from  the  fact  that  after  his  death  Eusebius, 
"the  father  of  ecclesiastical  history,"  changed  his 


MINOR  AUTHORITIES.  203 

own  name  to  "  Pamphilus's  Eiisebius. "  The  "Apol- 
ogy" contained  ''very  -many  testimonies  of  fathers 
earlier  than  Origen  in  favor  of  restitution. "  ^  How- 
lamentable  that  these  "testimonies  "  are  lost!  What 
light  they  would  shed  on  early  opinion  on  the  great 
theme  of  this  book.  As  Origen  was  born  about 
ninety  years  after  St.  John's  death,  these  very  nu- 
merous "testimonies"  would  carry  back  these  doc- 
trines very  close,  or  altogether  to  the  apostolic  age. 

"With  Pamphilus,  the  era  of  free  Christian  theol- 
ogy of  the  Eastern  church  ends. "  PAMPHiLUS,according 
to  EusEBiuSjWas  ' '  a  man  who  excelled  in  every  virtue 
through  his  whole  life,  whether  by  a  renunciation 
and  contempt  of  the  world,  by  distributing  his  sub- 
stance among  the  needy,  or  by  a  disregard  of  worldly 
expectations,  and  by  a  philosophical  deportment  and 
self-denial.  But  he  was  chiefly  distinguished  above 
the  rest  of  us  by  his  sincere  devotedness  to  the  sa- 
cred Scriptures,  and  by  an  indefatigable  industry  in 
what  he  proposed  to  accomplish,  by  his  great  kind- 
ness and  alacrity  to  serve  all  his  relatives,  and  all 
that  approached  him."  He  copied,  for  the  great 
library  in  Caesarea,  most  of  Origen's  manuscripts, 
with  his  own  hands. 

EusEBiuswas  probably  born  in  Caesarea.  Hewasa 
friend  of  Origen,  and  fellow-teacher  with  him  in  the 
Caesarean  school,  and  published  with  Pamphilus  a 
glowing  defense  of  Origen  in  six  books,  of  which  five 
are  lost.  He  also  copied  and  edited  many  of  his 
works.  Dr.  Beecher,  in  his  "  History  of  Future 
Retribution,"  asserts  the  Universalism  of  Eusebius, 

sRouth.  Rel.  Sac,  III,  p.  498.  O.xford  ed.,  1846. 


204     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

though  Dr.  Ballou,  in  his  "Ancient  History"  does 
not  quote  him. 

On  I  Cor.  XV:  28,  Eusebius  says:  **  If  the  subjec- 
tion of  the  Son  to  the  Father  means  imion  with  him, 
then  the  subjection  of  all  to  the  Son  means  union  with 
him.  *  *  *  Christ  is  to  subject  all  things  to  him- 
self. We  ought  to  conceive  of  this  as  such  a  salutary 
subjection  as  that  by  which  the  Son  will  be  subject 
to  him  who  subjects  all  to  him."*  Again  on  the 
second  psalm :  "  The  Son  breaking  in  pieces  his  ene- 
mies for  the  sake  of  remolding  them  as  a  potter  his 
own  work,  as  Jer.  xviii:  6,  is  to  restore  them  once 
more  to  their  former  state. "  Jerome  distinctly  says 
of  Eusebius:  "He,  in  the  most  evident  manner, 
acquiesced  in  Origen's  tenets."  His  understanding 
of  terms  is  seen  where  he  twice  calls  the  fire  that 
consumed  two  martyrs  "unquenchable"  {asbesto 
puri).  Eusebius  is  as  severe  in  describing  the  sinner's 
woes  as  Augustine  himself.  He  says:  "Who  those 
were  (whose  worm  dieth  not)  he  showed  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  prophecy,  *I  have  nourished  and 
brought  up  children  and  they  have  set  me  at  nought.' 
He  spoke  darkly  then  of  those  of  the  Jews  who  set 
at  nought  the  saving  grace.  Which  end  of  the  un- 
godly our  Savior  himself  also  appoints  in  the  Gospel, 
saying  to  those  who  shall  stand  on  the  left  hand,  '  Go 
ye  into  the  aionian  fire,  prepared  for  the  devil  and 
his  angels. '  As  then  the  fire  is  said  to  be  aionian^ 
so  here  'unquenchable,'  one  and  the  same  substance 
encircling  them  according  to  the  Scriptures. " 

In  varied  and  extensive  learning,  and  as  a  theolo- 

«De  Eccl.  Theol.,  Migne,  Vol.  XXIV,  pp.  1030-38. 


MINOR  AUTHORITIES.  205 

gian  and  writer,  and  most  of  all  as  an  historian, 
EusEBius  was  far  before  most  of  those  of  his  times; 
and  though  high  in  the  confidence  of  his  Emperor, 
CoNSTANTiNE,  he  did  not  make  his  influence  contri- 
bute to  his  own  personal  aggrandizement.  He  was 
so  kind  toward  the  Arians,  with  whom  he  did  not 
agree,  that  he  was  accused  of  Arianism  by  such  as 
could  not  see  how  one  could  differ  from  another 
without  hating  him.  Most  of  his  writings  have  per- 
ished. Of  course  his  name  is  chiefly  immortalized 
by  his  "Ecclesiastical  History." 

Athanasius  (A.  D.  296-373).  This  great  man 
was  a  student  of  Origen  and  speaks  of  him  with 
favor,  defends  him  as  orthodox,  and  quotes  him  as 
authority.  He  argues  for  the  possibility  of  repent- 
ance and  pardon  for  even  the  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost.  He  says:  "Christ  captured  over  again  the 
souls  captured  by  the  devil,  for  that  he  promised  in 
saying,  '  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto 
me.'"  On  Ps.  Ixviii,  18:  "When,  then,  the  whole 
creation  shall  meet  the  Son  in  the  clouds,  and  shall 
be  subject  to  him,  then,  too,  shall  the  Son  himself 
be  subject  to  the  Father,  as  being  a  faithful  Apostle, 
and  High  Priest  of  all  creation,  that  God  may  be  all 
in  all.  "^  Athanasius  nominated  Didymus  the  Blind 
as  president  of  the  Catechetical  school  of  Alexan- 
dria, where  he  presided  sixty  years,  an  acknowl- 
edged Universalist,  which  is  certainly  evidence  of 
the  sympathies,  if  not  of  the  real  views  of  Athana- 
sius. He  called  Origen  a  "wonderful  and  most  la- 
borious man, "  and  offers  no  condemnation  of  his 
eschatology. 

sSermon  Major  de  fide.   Migne,  vol.  XXVl.  pp.  1263-1294. 


2o6     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

DiDYMUS,  "the  illustrious,"  the  Blind,  was  born, 
it  is  supposed,  in  Alexandria,  A.  D.  309.  He  be- 
came entirely  blind  when  four  years  of  age,  and 
learned  to  write  by  using  tablets  of  wood.  He  knew 
the  Scriptures  by  heart,  through  hearing  them  read. 
He  died,  universally  esteemed,  A.  D.  395.  He  was 
held  to  be  strictly  orthodox,  though  known  to  cher- 
ish the  views  of  Origen  on  universal  restoration. 
After  his  death,  in  the  councils  of  A.  D.  553,  680, 
and  787,  he  was  anathematized  for  advocating  Ori- 
gen's  "abominable  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of 
souls,"  but  nothing  is  said  in  condemnation  of  his 
pronounced  Universalism. 

Of  the  Descent  of  Christ  into  Hades,  he  says, — 
as  translated  by  Ambrose:  "In  the  liberation  of  all 
no  one  remains  a  captive ;  at  the  time  of  the  Lord's 
passion,  he  alone  (the  devil)  was  injured,  who  lost 
all  the  captives  he  was  keeping.  "^  Didymus  argues 
the  final  remission  of  punishment,  and  universal  sal- 
vation, in  comments  on  I  Timothy  and  I  Peter.  He 
was  condemned  by  name  in  the  council  of  Constanti- 
nople and  his  works  ordered  destroyed.  Were  they 
in  existence  no  doubt  many  extracts  might  be  given. 
Jerome  and  Rufinus  state  that  he  was  an  advocate 
of  universal  restoration.  Yet  he  was  honored  by 
the  best  Christians  of  his  times.  Schaff  says: 
"  Even  men  like  Jerome,  Rufinus,  Palladius,  and  Is- 
adore  sat  at  his  feet  with  admiration."  After  Jerome 
turned  against  Origen  (See  sketch  of  Jerome)  he 
declares  that  Didymus  defended  Origen's  words  as 
pious  and  Catholic,    words  that    "  all  churches  con- 

«DeSpir.  Saact.,  Ch.  «. 


MINOR  AUTHORITIES.  207 

demn."  And  he  adds:  "In  Didymus  we  extol  his 
great  power  of  memory,  and  his  purity  of  faith  in  the 
Trinity,  but  on  other  points,  as  to  which  he  unduly 
trusted  Origen,  we  draw  back  from  him. "  Schaff 
declares  him  to  have  been  a  faithful  follower  of  Ori- 
gen. Socrates  calls  him  "the  great  bulwark  of  the 
true  faith,"  and  quotes  Antony  as  saying:  "Didy- 
mus, let  not  the  loss  of  your  bodily  eyes  distress  you; 
for  although  you  are  deprived  of  such  organs  as  con- 
fer a  faculty  of  perception  common  to  gnats  and 
flies,  you  should  rather  rejoice  that  you  have  eyes 
such  as  angels  see  with,  by  which  the  Deity  himself 
is  discerned,  and  his  light  comprehended."  Accord- 
ing to  the  great  Jerome,  he  "surpassed  all  of  his  day 
in  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures. "  He  wrote  volu- 
minously, but  very  little  remains. 

He  says:  "For  although  the  Judge  at  times  in- 
flicts tortures  and  anguish  on  those  who  merit  them, 
yet  he  who  more  deeply  scans  the  reasons  of  things, 
perceiving  the  purpose  of  his  goodness,  who  desires 
to  amend  the  sinner,   confesses  him  to  be  good." 

Again  he  says:  ''As  men,  by  giving  up  their 
sins,  are  made  subject  to  him  (Christ),  so  too,  the 
higher  intelligences,  freed  by  correction  from  their 
willful  sins,  are  made  subject  to  him,  on  the  comple- 
tion of  the  dispensation  ordered  for  the  salvation  of 
all.  God  desires  to  destroy  evil,  therefore  evil  is 
(one)  of  those  things  liable  to  destruction.  Now 
that  which  is  of  those  things  liable  to  destruction 
will  be  destroyed."  He  is  said  by  Basnage  to  have 
held  to  universal  salvation. 

These  are  samples  of  a  large  number  of  extracts 
that  might  be  made  from  the  most  celebrated  of  the 


2o8     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Alexandrine  school,  representing  the  type  of  theol- 
ogy that  prevailed  in  the  East,  during  almost  four 
hundred  years.  They  are  not  from  a  few  isolated 
authorities  but  from  the  most  eminent  in  the  church, 
and  those  who  gave  tone  to  theological  thought,  and 
shaped  and  gave  expression  to  public  opinion.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  they  are  true  exponents  of  the 
doctrines  of  their  day,  and  that  man's  universal  de- 
liverance from  sin  was  the  generally  accepted  view 
of  human  destiny,  prevalent  in  the  Alexandrine 
church  from  the  death  of  the  apostles  to  the  end  of 
the  Fourth  Century.  And  in  this  connection  it 
may  be  repeated  that  the  Catechetical  school  in 
Alexandria  was  taught  by  Anaxagoras,  Pan- 
T^Nus,  Origen,  Clement,  Heraclas,  Dionysius, 
PiERius,  Theognostus,  Peter  Martyr,  Arius  and 
DiDYMUs,  all  Universalists,  so  far  as  is  known.  The 
last  teacher  in  the  Alexandrine  school  was  Didymus. 
After  his  day  it  was  removed  to  Sida  in  Pamphylia, 
and  soon  after  it  ceased  to  exist.  '^ 

The  historian  Gieseler  records  that  "the  belief 
in  the  inalienable  capability  of  improvement  in  all 
rational  beings,  and  •  the  limited  duration  of  future 
punishment,  was  so  general,  even  in  the  West,  and 
among  the  opponents  of  Origen  that,  whatever  may 
be  said  of  its  not  having  risen  without  the  influence 
of  Origen's  school,  it  had  become  entirely  indepen- 
dent of  his  system. "  So  that  the  doctrine  may  be 
said  to  have  prevailed  all  over  Christendom,  East 


'Neander,  Hist.  Christ.  Dogmas,  I,  p.  265  (London,  1866),  who  cites 
Nieder  (Klrchengeschichte),  for  full  description  of  the  different  theological 
schools. 


MINOR  AUTHORITIES.  209 

and  West,  among  *  *  orthodox  "  and  heterodox  aHke. 

Epiphanius. 

Epiphanius,  a  narrow-minded,  credulous,  violent- 
tempered,  but  sincere  man,  A.  D.  310-404,  was 
bishop  of  Constantia  in  Cyprus,  A.  D.  367.  He  bit- 
terly opposed  Origen,  and  denounced  him  for  a  mul- 
titude of  errors,  but  he  does  not  hint  that  his  views 
of  restoration  were  objectionable  to  himself^  or  to 
the  church,  at  the  time  he  wrote.  He  "  began  those 
miserable  Origenistic  controversies  in  which  monkish 
fanaticism  combined  with  personal  hatreds  and  jeal- 
ousies to  brand  with  heresy  the  greatest  theologian 
of  the  primitive  church. "  ^  To  his  personal  hatred 
and  bitterness  is  due  much,  if  not  most,  of  the  oppo- 
sition to  Origenism  that  began  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  Fourth  Century.  In  an  indictment  of  eighteen 
counts,  published  A.  D.  380,  we  find  what  possibly 
may  have  been  the  first  intended  censure  of  Univer- 
salism  on  record,  though  it  will  be  observed  that  its 
animus  is  not  against  the  salvation  of  all  mankind, 
but  against  the  salvability  of  evil  spirits.  Epipha- 
nius says :  *  *  That  which  he  strove  to  establish  I  know 
not  whether  to  laugh  at  or  grieve.  Origen,  the  re- 
nowned doctor,  dared  to  teach  that  the  devil  is  again 
to  become  what  he  originally  was — to  return  to  his 
former  dignity.  Oh,  wickedness!  Who  is  so  mad 
and  stupid  as  to  believe  that  holy  John  Baptist,  and 
Peter,  and  John  the  Apostle  and  Evangelist,  and 
that  Isaiah  also  and  Jeremiah,  and  the  rest  of  the 
prophets,  are  to  become  fellow-heirs  with  the  devil 

■Diet.  Christ.  Biog.,  II,  p.  15CI 


210     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

in  the  king-dom  of  Heaven!"  ^  The  reader  can  here 
see  the  possible  origin  of  the  familiar  argument  of 
recent  times. 

In  his  book  against  heresies,  "The  Panarion," 
this  "hammer  of  heretics"  names  eighty;  but  uni- 
versal salvation  is  not  among  them.  The  sixty- fourth 
is  "Origenism,"  but,  as  is  seen  elsewhere  in  this  vol- 
ume, that  stood  for  other  dogmas  of  Origen  and  not 
for  his  Universalism. 

Methodius,  bishop  of  Tyre  (A.  D.  293).  His 
writings,  like  so  many  of  the  works  of  the  early  fa- 
thers, have  been  lost,  but  Epiphanius  and  Photius 
have  preserved  extracts  from  his  work  on  the  resur- 
rection. He  says :  ' '  God,  for  this  cause,  pronounced 
him  (man)  mortal,  and  clothed  him  with  mortality, 
that  man  might  not  be  an  undying  evil,  in  order  that 
by  the  dissolution  of  the  body,  sin  might  be  destroyed 
root  and  branch  from  beneath,  that  there  might  not 
be  left  even  the  smallest  particle  of  root,  from  which 
new  shoots  of  sin  might  break  forth."  Again,  "Christ 
was  crucified  that  he  might  be  adored  by  all  created 
things  equally,  for  'unto  him  every  knee  shall  bow,'  " 
etc  Again:  "  The  Scriptures  usually  call  *  destruc- 
tion '  the  turning  to  the  better  at  some  future  time. " 
Again :  * '  The  world  shall  be  set  on  fire  in  order  to 
purification  and  renewal. "  ^"^ 

The  general  drift,  as  well  as  the  definite  state- 
ments of  the  minor  authorities  cited  in  this  chapter, 
show  the  dominant  sentiment  of  the  times. 


»Epiph.  Epist.  ad  Johan.  inter  Hieron.    0pp.  IV,  part,  ii.in  Ballou's 
Anc.  Hist ,  p.  194, 

lODe  Resurr.,  VIII. 


XV. 

GREGORY  NAZIANZEN. 

Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  born  A.  D.  330,  was  one 
of  the  greatest  orators  of  the  ancient  church.     Gib- 
bon sarcastically   says:     "The  title 
Bishop  of  of  Saint  has  been  added  to  his  name, 

Constantinople.  but  the  tenderness  of  his  heart,  and 
the  elegance  of  his  genius,  reflect  a 
more  pleasing  luster  on  the  memory  of  Gregory  Naz- 
ianzen."  The  child  of  a  Christian  mother,  Nonna, 
he  was  instructed  in  youth  in  the  elements  of  relig- 
ion. He  enjoyed  an  early  acquaintance  with  Basil, 
and  in  Alexandria  with  Athanasius.  With  Basil 
his  friendship  was  so  strong  that  Gregory  says  it 
was  only  one  soul  in  two  bodies.  A.  D.  361,  he  be- 
came presbyter,  and  in  379  he  was  called  to  the 
charge  of  the  small,  divided  orthodox  church  in  Con- 
stantinople, which  had  been  almost  annihilated  by 
the  prevalence  of  Arianism.  He  so  strengthened  and 
increased  it,  that  the  little  chapel  became  the  splen- 
did "Church  of  the  Resurrection."  A.  D.  380  the 
Emperor  Theodosius  deposed  the  Arian  bishop,  and 
transferred  the  cathedral  to  Gregory.  He  was 
elected  bishop  of  Constantinople  in  May,  381,  and 
was  president  of  the  CEcumenical  council  in  Constan- 
tinople, while  Gregory  Nyssa  added  the  clauses  to 
the  Nicene  creed.  He  resigned  because  of  the  hos- 
tility of  other  bishops,  and  passed  his  remaining  days 

211 


212     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

in  religious  and  literary  pursuits.  He  died  A.  D. 
390  or  391.  He  was  second  to  Chrysostom  as  an 
orator  in  the  Greek  church.  More  than  this,  he  was 
one  of  the  purest  and  best  of  men,  and  his  was  one 
of  the  five  or  six  greatest  names  in  the  church's  first 
five  hundred  years.  Prof.  Schaff  styles  him  "one 
of  the  champions  of  Orthodoxy. " 

Gregory  says:  "  God  brings  the  dead  to  life  as 
partakers  of  fire  or  light.  But  whether  even  all  shall 
hereafter  partake  of  God,  let  it  be  elsewhere  dis- 
cussed. "  Again  he  says :  "I  know  also  of  a  fire  not 
cleansing  {KadapTrjpiov)  but  chastising  (KoXaarTypiov), 
*  *  *  unless  anyone  chooses  even  in  this  case  to 
regard  it  more  humanely,  and  creditably  to  the  Chas- 
tiser. "  This  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  esoteric, 
and  well  may  Petavius  say:  "  It  is  manifest  that  in 
this  place  St.  Gregory  is  speaking  of  the  punishments 
of  the  damned,  and  doubted  whether  they  would  be 
eternal,  or  rather  to  be  estimated  in  accordance  with 
the  goodness  of  God,  so  as  at  some  time  to  be  termi- 
nated." And  Farrar  well  observes:  "  If  this  last 
sentence  had  not  been  added  the  passage  would  have 
been  always  quoted  as  a  most  decisive  proof  that 
this  eminently  great  father  and  theologian  held, 
without  any  modification,  the  severest  form  of  the 
doctrine  of  endless  torments." 

Gregory  tells  us:   "When  you  read  in  Scripture 
of  God's  being  angry,  or  threatening  a  sword  against 
the  wicked    *     *     *    understand  this 
The  Penalties  rightly,  and  not  wrongly     *     *     * 

of  Sin.  how  then  are  these  metaphors  used? 

Figuratively.     In  what  way?     With 
a  view  to   terrifying  minds  of   the  simpler  sort." 


GREGORY  NAZIANZEN.  213 

He  writes  again:  "A  few  drops  of  blood  renew 
the  whole  world,  and  become  for  all  men  that  which 
rennet  is  for  milk,  uniting-  and  drawing  us  into  one. " 
Christ  is  "like  leaven  for  the  entire  mass,  and  hav- 
ing made  that  which  was  damned  one  with  himself, 
frees  the  whole  from  damnation."  And  yet  Gregory 
describes  the  penalties  of  sin  in  language  as  fearful 
as  though  he  did  not  teach  restoration  beyond  it. 
He  says:  "That  sentence  after  which  is  no  appeal, 
no  higher  judge,  no  defense  through  subsequent 
work ;  no  oil  from  the  wise  virgins  or  from  those  who 
sell,  for  the  failing  lamps;  *  *  *  but  one  last 
fearful  judgment,  even  more  just  than  formidable, 
yea,  rather  the  more  formidable  because  it  is  also 
just;  when  thrones  are  set  and  the  Ancient  of  Days 
§itteth,  and  books  are  open,  and  a  stream  of  fire 
sweepeth  *  *  *  and  they  who  have  done  evil 
to  the  resurrection  of  judgment  *  *  *  (where) 
the  torment  will  be,  with  the  rest,  or  rather  above 
all  the  rest,  to  be  cast  off  from  God,  and  chat  shame 
in  the  conscience  which  hath  no  end. "  ^ 

The  character  of  Gregory  shows  us  the  kind  of 
mind  that  leans  to  the  larger  hope,  or,  perhaps,  the 
disposition  that  the  larger  hope  produces.  Says 
Farrar:  "Poet,  orator,  theologian;  a  man  as  great 
theologically  as  he  was  personally  winning  2  *  *  * 
the  sole  man  whom  the  church  has  suffered  to  share 
that  title  (Theologian)  with  the  Evangelist  St.  John, 
*  *  *  the  most  learned  and  the  most  eloquent 
bishop  in  one  of  the  most  learned  ages  of  the  church, 
whom  St.  Basil  called  *a  vessel  of  election,  a  deep 

»Orat.  xl,  Carm.  xxi,  Drat,  xlii.;  Migne,  Vols.  XXXVI,  XXI. 
'See  N«wman's  Hist.  Essays,  Vol.  III. 


214     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

well,  a  mouth  of  Christ;'  whom  Rufinus  calls  'in- 
comparable in  life  and  doctrine.'  Gregory  of  Nazi- 
anzus  deserved  the  honor  of  sainthood  if  any  man 
has  ever  done,  being  as  he  was,  one  of  the  bravest 
men  in  an  age  of  confessors,  one  of  the  holiest  men 
in  an  age  of  saints."  *  *  *  "In  questions  of  es- 
chatology  he  seems  more  or  less  to  have  shared, 
though  with  wavering  language,  in  some  of  the 
views  of  Origen,  which  the  church  has  partly  adopted 
and  partly  uncondemned — the  view,  especially,  that 
there  shall  be  hereafter  a  probatory  and  purifying 
fire,  and  that  we  may  indulge  a  hope  in  the  possible 
cessation,  for  many,  if  not  for  all,  of  the  punish- 
ments which  await  sin  beyond  the  grave.  He  speaks 
indeed  far  less  openly  than  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  of  a 
belief  in  the  final  restoration  of  all  things,  but  even 
this  belief  lies  involved  in  his  remarks  on  the  proph- 
ecy of  St.  Paul,  concerning  that  day  when  '  God  shall 
be  all  in  all.'  " 

When  Gregory  and  his  congregation  had  been 

attacked    in   their    church,    while    celebrating    our 

Lord's  baptism,  by  the  Arian   rab- 

_  ,    c-  •  -i.      ble    of    Constantinople,     in    conse- 

Gregory's  Spirit.  ^    ' 

quence  of  the  report  that  they  were 

Tritheists,  Gregory  heard  that  The- 
ODORUS  was  about  to  appeal  for  redress  to  Theodo- 
sius,  whereupon  the  good  man  wrote  that  while  pun- 
ishment might  possibly  prevent  recurrence  of  such 
conduct,  it  was  better  to  give  an  example  of  long- 
suffering.  "Let  us,"  said  he,  "overcome  them  by 
gentleness,  and  win  them  by  piety;  let  their  punish- 
ment be  found  in  their  own  consciences,  not  in  our 
resentment.     Dry  not  up  the  fig-tree  that  may  yet 


GREGORY  NAZIANZEN,  215 

bear  fruit."  The  Seventh  General  Council  called 
him  "Father  of  Fathers." 

That  he  regarded  punishment  after  death  as  lim- 
ited, is  sufficiently  evident  from  his  reference  to  the 
heretical  Novatians:  "Let  them,  if  they  will,  walk 
in  our  way  and  in  Christ's.  If  not,  let  them  walk  in 
their  own  way.  Perchance  there  they  will  be  bap- 
tized with  the  fire,  with  that  last,  that  more  laborious 
and  longer  baptism,  which  devours  the  substance 
like  hay,  and  consumes  the  lightness  of  all  evil.  "^ 

Neander  says:  "Gregory  Nazianzen  did  not 
venture  to  express  his  own  doctrine  so  openly  (as 
Gregory  Nyssen)  but  allows  it  sometimes  to  escape 
when  he  is  speaking  of  eternal  punishment.  The  An- 
tiochan  school  were  led  to  this  doctrine,  not  by  Ori- 
gen  but  by  their  own  thinkings  and  examination  of 
the  Scripture.  They  regarded  the  two-fold  division  of 
the  development  of  the  creature  as  a  general  law  of 
the  universe.  This  led  to  the  final  result  of  univer- 
sal participation  in  the  unchangeable  divine  life. 
Hence  the  dTroKaTao-Tao-is  was  taught  by  Diodorus  of 
Tarsus,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Incarnation  of  God, 
and  also  by  Theodorus.  He  applied  Matt,  v:  26,  to 
prove  a  rule  of  proportion,  and  an  end  of  punish- 
ment. God  would  not  call  the  wicked  to  rise  again 
if  they  must  endure  punishment  without  amend- 
ment."* 


'AssemaniBibl.  Orient.  Tom.  Ill,  p.  323. 

*Hist.  Christ.  Dogmas,  Vol.  II.  Hagenbach  testifies  to  the  same.  Dog- 
mas, Vol.  I. 


XVI. 

THEODORE    OF    MOPSUESTIA     AND     THE 
NESTORIANS. 

Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  was  born  in  Antioch, 
A.  D.  350,  and  died  428  or  429.  He  ranked  next  to 
Origen  in  the  esteem  of  the  ancient  church.  For 
nearly  fifty  years  he  maintained  the  cause  of  the 
church  in  controversy  with  various  classes  of  assail- 
ants, and  throughout  his  life  his  orthodoxy  was  re- 
garded as  unimpeachable.  He  was  bishop  for  thirty- 
six  years,  and  died  full  of  honors;  but  after  he  had 
been  in  his  grave  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  years, 
the  church  had  become  so  corrupted  by  heathenism 
that  it  condemned  him  for  heresy.  He  was  anathe- 
matized for  Nestorianism,  but  his  Universalism  was 
not  stigmatized.  His  great  renown  and  popularity 
must  have  caused  his  exalted  views  of  God's  charac- 
ter and  man's  destiny  to  prevail  more  extensively 
among  the  masses  than  appears  in  the  surviving  lit- 
erature of  his  times. 

His  own  words  are:  "The  wicked  who  have 
committed  evil  the  whole  period  of  their  lives  shall 
be  punished  till  they  learn  that,  by  continuing  in 
sin,  they  only  continue  in  misery.  And  when,  by 
this  means,  they  shall  have  been  brought  to  fear 
God,  and  to  regard  him  with  good  will,  they  shall 
obtain  the  enjoyment  of  his  grace.  For  he  never 
would  have  said,   'until  thou  hast  paid  the  uttermost 

216 


THEODORE  AND  THE  NESTORIANS.  217 

farthing, '  unless  we  can  be  released  from  suffering 
after  having  suffered  adequately  for  sin;  nor  would 
he  have  said,  '  he  shall  be  beaten  with  many  stripes, ' 
and  again,  *  he  shall  be  beaten  with  few  stripes,'  un- 
less the  punishment  to  be  endured  for  sin  will  have 
an  end.  "^ 

Professor  E.  H.  Plumptre  writes:  "Theodore  of 
Mopsuestia  teaches  that  in  the  world  to  come  those 

who  have  done  evil  all  their  life  long 
Views  Defined  by  will  be  made  worthy  of  the  sweetness 
Great  Scholars.        of  the  divine  beauty. "      And  in  the 

course  of  a  statement  of  Theodore's 
doctrine,  Prof.  Swete  observes ^  that  Theodore 
teaches  that  "the  punishments  of  the  condemned  will 
indeed  be  in  their  nature  eternal,  being  such  as  be- 
long to  eternity  and  not  to  time,  but  both  reason  and 
Scripture  lead  us  to  the  conclusion  that  they  will  be 
remissible  upon  repentance.  *  Where, '  he  asks,  '  would 
be  the  benefit  of  a  resurrection  to  such  persons,  if 
they  were  raised  only  to  be  punished  without  end?  * 
Moreover,  Theodore's  fundamental  conception  of  the 
mission  and  person  of  Christ  tells  him  to  believe 
that  there  will  be  a  final  restoration  of  all  creation."^ 
Theodore  writes  on  Rom.  vi,  6:  "All  have  the 
hope  of  rising  with  Christ,  so  that  the  body  having 
obtained  immortality,  thenceforward  the  proclivity 
to  evil  should  be  removed.  God  recapitulated  all 
things  in  Christ  *  *  *  as  though  making  a  com- 
pendious renewal  and  restoration  of  the  whole  crea- 
tion to  him.     Now  this  will  take  place  in  a  future 

>  AssemaniBib.  Orient.  Tom.  III. 
SDict.  Christ.  Biog.  II,  p.  194. 
•Ibid.  IV,  p,  946. 


2i8     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

age,  when  all  mankind,  and  all  powers  possessed  of 
reason,  look  up  to  him  as  is  right,  and  obtain  mutual 
concord  and  firm  peace. "  ^ 

Theodore  is  said  to  have  introduced  universal 
restoration  into  the  liturgy  of  the  Nestorians,  of 
which  sect  he  was  one  of  the  foun- 
Author  of  Nes-  ders.  His  words  were  translated 
torian  Declarations,  into  the  Syriac,  and  constituted  the 
office  of  devotion  among  that  re- 
markable people  for  centuries.  His  works  were 
circulated  all  through  Eastern  Asia,  through  which, 
says  Neander,  the  Nestorians  diffused  Christianity. 
This  great  body  of  Christians  exerted  a  mighty  in- 
fluence until  they  were  nearly  annihilated  by  the 
merciless  Tamerlane.  He  is  still  venerated  among 
the  Nestorians  as   the  "Interpreter." 

In  Theodore's  confession  of  faith  he  says,  after 
stating  that  Adam  began  the  first  and  mortal  state, 
' '  But  Christ  the  Lord  began  the  second  state.  He  in 
the  future,  revealed  from  heaven,  will  restore  us  all 
into  communion  with  himself.  For  the  apostle  says: 
'The  first  man  was  of  the  earth  earthy,  the  second 
man  is  the  Lord  from  heaven, '  that  is,  who  is  to  ap- 
pear hereafter  thence,  that  he  may  restore  all  to  the 
likeness  of  himself."^ 

The  moderate  and  evangelical  Dorner  becomes 


*"  Omnia  *  *  *  recapitulavit  in  Christo  quasi  quandam  compendio- 
sani  renovationem  et  adintegrationem  totius  faciens  creaturae  per  eum 
*  *  *  hoc  autem  in  futuro  saeculo  erit,  quando  homines  cuncti  necnon  et 
rationabiles  virtutes  ad  ilium  inspiciant,  ut  fas  exigit,  et  coacordiam  inter 
sepacemque  firmam  obtineant  " 

''"  The  doctrine  of  universal  restoration  in  the  Nestorian  churches  dis- 
appeared by  a  nearly  universal  extermination  of  those  churches."  Beecher, 
Hist.  Doc.  Fut.  Ret.,  p.  290. 


THEODORE  AND  THE  NESTORIANS.  219 

eulogistic  when  referring  to  this  eminent  Universal- 
ist:     •*  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  was 
Dorner  on  the  crown  and  climax  of  the  school 

Theodore.  of   Antioch.     The    compass    of    his 

learning,  his  acuteness,  and  as  we 
must  suppose  also,  the  force  of  his  personal  charac- 
ter, conjoined  with  his  labors  through  many  years  as 
a  teacher  both  of  churches  and  of  young  and  talented 
disciples,  and  as  a  prolific  writer,  gained  for  him  the 
title  of  Magister  Orientis.''^  He  *'was  regarded 
with  an  appreciation  the  more  widely  extended  as  he 
was  the  first  Oriental  theologian  of  his  time. "  The- 
odore held  that  evil  was  permitted  by  the  Creator, 
in  order  that  it  might  become  the  source  of  good  to 
each  and  all.     He  says: 

*'God  knew  that  men  would  sin  in  all  ways,  but 
permitted  this  result  to  come  to  pass,  knowing  that 
it  would  ultimately  be  for  their  advantage.  For 
since  God  created  man  when  he  did  not  exist,  and 
made  him  ruler  of  so  extended  a  system,  and  offered 
so  great  blessings  for  his  enjoyment,  it  was  impos- 
sible that  he  should  not  have  prevented  the  en- 
trance of  sin,  if  he  had  not  known  that  it  would  be 
ultimately  for  his  advantage."  He  also  says  that 
God  has  demonstrated  that  "the  same  result  (that  is 
seen  in  the  example  of  Christ)  shall  be  effected  in  all 
his  creatures."  *  *  *  God  has  determined  "that 
there  should  be  first  a  dispensation  including  evils, 
and  that  then  they  should  be  removed  and  universal 
good  take  their  place. "  He  taught  that  Christ  is  an 
illustration  of  universal  humanity,  which  will  ulti- 
mately achieve  his  status. 

«Doct.  and  Per.  of  Christ.,  Div.  II,  Vol.  1,  p.  50. 


220    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

It  may  be  mentioned  that  though  Origen  and 

Theodore  were  Universalists,  they  reached    their 

conclusions    by  different  processes. 

,,  .,     .    p..       .,     Origen  exalted  the  freedom  of  the 
Unity  in  Diversity. 

will,  and  taught  that  it  could  never 
be  trammeled,  so  that  reformation 
could  never  be  excluded  from  any  soul.  He  held 
to  man's  pre-existence,  and  that  his  native  sinfulness 
resulted  from  misconduct  in  a  previous  state  of  be- 
ing. He  was  also  extremely  mystical,  and  allegor- 
ized and  spiritualized  the  Scripture.  Its  literal 
meaning  was  in  his  eyes  of  secondary  account.  The- 
odore, on  the  other  hand,  developed  the  grammati- 
cal and  historical  meaning  of  the  Word,  and  dis- 
carded Origen's  mysticism  and  allegorizing,  and  his 
doctrine  of  man's  pre-existence,  and  instead  of  re- 
garding man  as  absolutely  free,  considered  him  as 
part  of  a  divine  plan  to  be  ultimately  guided  by  God 
into  holiness.  Both  were  Universalists,  but  they 
pursued  different  routes  to  the  same  divine  goal.  It 
is  interesting  to  note  the  emphasis  the  early  Univer- 
salists placed  iipon  different  points.  The  Gnostics 
argued  universal  salvation  from  the  disciplinary  pro- 
cess of  transmigration;  the  Sibylline  Oracles  from 
the  prayers  of  the  good  who  could  not  tolerate  the 
sufferings  of  the  damned;  Clemens  Alexandrinus 
proved  it  from  the  remedial  influence  of  all  God's 
punishments;  Origen  urged  the  foregoing,  but 
added  the  freedom  of  the  will,  which  would  ultimately 
embrace  the  good;  Diodorus  put  it  on  the  ground 
that  God's  mercy  exceeds  all  the  desert  of  sin;  The- 
odore of  Mopsuestia,  that  sin  is  an  incidental  part 
of  human  education,  etc. 


THEODORE  AND  THE  NESTORIANS.  22i 

After  the  condemnation  of  Origen,  Theodore 
and  Gregory,  most  of  their  works  were  destroyed 
by  their  bigoted  enemies.  The  loss  to  the  worJd  by 
the  destruction  of  their  writings  is  irreparable.  Some 
of  Theodore's  works  are  thought  to  exist  in  Syriac, 
in  the  Nestorian  literature.  The  future  may  recover 
some  of  them,  as  the  recent  past  has  rescued  the 
Sinaitic  codex,  the  "Book  of  Enoch,"  and  other  an- 
cient manuscripts. 

The  liturgies  of  the  Nestorians,  largely  com- 
posed by  Theodore,  breathe  the  spirit  of  the  uni- 
versal Gospel.  In  the  sacramental  liturgy  he  intro- 
duces Col.  i:  19,  20,  to  sustain  the  idea  of  universal 
restoration :  * '  For  it  pleased  the  Father  that  in  him 
should  all  fullness  dwell;  and  having  made  peace 
through  the  blood  of  his  cross,  by  him  to  reconcile 
all  things  unto  himself;  by  him,  I  say,  whether  they 
be  things  in  earth,  or  things  in  heaven. "  ^ 
The  Nestorians. 

The  creed  of  the  Nestorians  never  did,  and  does 
not  in  modern  times,  contain  any  recognition  of  end- 
less punishment.  MosHEiM  says:  "It  is  to  the  hon- 
or of  this  sect  that,  of  all  the  Christian  residents  of 
the  East,  they  have  preserved  themselves  free  from 
the  numberless  superstitions  which  have  found  their 
way  into  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches." 

A.  D.  431,  Nestorius  and  his  followers  were  ex- 
communicated from  the  orthodox  church  for  holding 
that  Christ  existed  in  two  persons  instead  of  two 
natures.  They  denied  the  accusation,  but  their  ene- 
mies prevailed.      Nestorius  refused  to  call    Mary 


TRenaudot's  Oriental  Liturgies,  Vol.  II,  p.  610. 


222    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

"The  Mother  of  God,"  but  was  willing  to  compro- 
mise between  those  who  held  her  to  be  such,  and  those 
who  regarded  her  as  '  'Mother  of  man,"  by  calling  her 
"Mother  of  Christ."^  The  wonderful  preservation 
and  Christian  zeal  of  the  Nestorians  imder  the  yoke 
of  Islam  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  history. 

The  worse  than  heathen  Athanasian  creed  is  not 
contained  in  any  Nestorian  ritual.      Nor  is  the  so- 
called  Apostles'  creed.     But  the  Ni- 
The  Nestorian  cene   is   recognized.     Among   those 

Liturgies.  immortalized    in    the    "Gezza"   are 

Gregory,  Basil,  Theodore  of  Mop- 
suestia,  and  Diodore,  all  Universalists.  In  the  lit- 
urgy, said  to  be  by  Nestorius  himself,  but  in  which 
Theodore  probably  had  a  hand,  occurs  this  lan- 
guage: "All  the  dead  have  slept  in  the  hope 
of  Thee,  that  by  thy  glorious  resurrection  Thou 
wouldest  raise  them  up  in  glory.  "  ^ 

Subsequent  hands  have  corrupted  the  faith  of 
Nestorius  and  Theodore.  For  example,  the 
"Jewel,"  written  by  Mar  Abd  Yeshua,  A.  D.  1298, 
says  that  the  wicked  "shall  remain  on  the  earth"  af- 
ter the  resurrection  of  the  righteous,  and  "shall  be 
consumed  with  the  fire  of  remorse  *  *  *  this  is  the 
true  Hell  whose  fire  is  not  quenched  and  whose 
worm  dieth  not."  But  the  earlier  faith  did  not  con- 
tain these  ideas.  The  litany  in  the  Khudra,  for 
Easter  eve,  has  these  words:     "O  Thou  Living  One 


8Theodoret,  Hist,  of  Ch.,  pp.  2,  3.  Theodore  wrote  two  works  on  Here- 
sies in  which  he  professes  to  condemn  all  the  heresies  of  his  times,  but  he 
does  not  mention  Universalism. 

^Badger's  Nestorians  and  their  Rituals,  Vol.  II.;  Gibbon,  Chap,  XLVII. 
Draper,  Hist.  Int.  Dev.  Europe;  Layard's  Nineveh, 


THEODORE  AND  THE  NESTORIANS.  223 

who  descendedst  to  the  abode  of  the  dead  and 
preachedst  a  good  hope  to  the  souls  which  were  de- 
tained in  Sheol,  we  pray  Thee,  O  Lord,  to  have 
mercy  upon  us."  "Blessed  is  the  king  who  hath  de- 
scended into  Sheol  and  hath  raised  us  up,  and  who, 
by  his  resurrection,  hath  given  the  promise  of  regen- 
eration to  the  human  race. " 

After  giving  numerous  testimonials  to  the  educa- 
tional, missionary  and  Christian  zeal   of  the   Nes- 

torians  and  other  followers  of  The- 
Dr.  Beecher  on  odore,  Beecher  says  that  these  ad- 
Theodore,  vocates    of    ancient    Restorationism 

were  "in  all  other  respects  Ortho- 
dox,"  and  that  their  views  did  not  prevent  them 
"from  establishing  wide-spread  systems  of  educa- 
tion, from  illuminating  the  Arabs,  and  through  them 
the  dark  churches  who  had  sunk  into  midnight 
gloom."  The  Universalism  of  Theodore  was  salu- 
tary in  its  effects  on  himself  and  his  followers.  It 
did  not  "  cut  the  nerve  of  missionary  enterprise." 

Instructive  Facts. 

It  is  then  apparent  in  the  writings  of  the  fathers, 
during  the  first  centuries  of  the  Christian  Era,  that 
whatever  views  they  entertained  of  human  destiny, — 
whether  they  inculcate  endless  punishment,  the  anni- 
hilation of  the  wicked,  or  universal  salvation,  they 
use  the  word  aionios  to  describe  the  duration  of  pun- 
ishment, showing  that  for  half  a  millennium  of  years 
the  word  did  not  possess  the  sense  of  endlessness. 
And  it  is  noticeable  that  there  is  no  controversy  on 
the  apparent  difference  of  opinion  among  them  on 
the  subject  of  man's  destiny.  And  it  is  probable  that 


224    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

many  of  the  writers  who  say  nothing  explicit,  held 
to  the  doctrine  of  universal  restoration,  as  it  is  seen 
that  as  soon  as  an  author  unmistakably  accepts  end- 
less punishment  he  warmly  advocates  it. 

And  can  the  fact  be  otherwise  than  significant, 
that,  while  Tertullian  and  other  prominent  defend- 
ers of  the  doctrine  of  endless  punish- 
Character  of  Early    ment  were  reared  as  heathen,   and 
Universalists.  even  confess  to  have  lived  corrupt 

and  vicious  lives  in  their  youth,  Ori- 
GEN,  the  Gregories,  Basil  the  Great,  Didymus, 
Theodore,  Theodorus  and  others  were  not  only  the 
greatest  among  the  saints  in  their  maturity,  but  were 
reared  from  birth  by  Christian  parents,  and  grew  up 
"in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord? " 

Dr.  Beecher  pays  this  remarkable  testimony: 
'■'■  I donot  knozv  an  unworthy,  loiv,  or  mean  character 
in  any  prominent,  open,  and  avowed  Restoratiojiist  of 
that  age  of  freedom  of  inquiry  which  was  inaugurated 
by  the  AIexa?idriue  school,  and  defended  by  Origen. 
But  besides  this  it  is  true  *  *  *  that  these  an- 
cient believers  in  final  restoration  lived  and  toiled 
and  suffered,  in  an  atmosphere  of  joy  and  hope,  and 
were  not  loaded  with  a  painful  and  crushing  burden 
of  sorrow  in  view  of  the  endless  misery  of  inumera- 
ble  multitudes.  *  *  *  j^  j^^y  ^q<^  ■\qq  xxmq  that 
these  results  were  owing  mainly  to  the  doctrine  of 
universal  restoration.  It  may  be  that  their  views  of 
Christ  and  the  Gospel,  which  were  decidedly  Ortho- 
dox, exerted  the  main  power  to  produce  these  re- 
sults. But  one  thing  is  true :  the  doctrine  of  univer- 
sal restoration  did  not  hinder  them.  If  not,  then 
the  inquiry  will  arise,  Why  should  it  now?"     **In 


THEODORE  AND  THE  NESTORIANS.  225 

that  famous  age  of  the  church's  story,  the  period 
embracing  the  Fourth  and  the  earlier  years  of  the 
Fifth  Century,  Universalism  seems  to  have  been  the 
creed  of  the  majority  of  Christians  in  East  and  West 
alike;  perhaps  even  of  a  large  majority  *  *  * 
and  in  the  roll  of  its  teachers  *  *  *  were  *  *  * 
most  of  the  greatest  names  of  the  greatest  age  of 
primitive  Christianity.  *  *  *  And  this  teaching, 
be  it  noted,  is  strongest  where  the  language  of  the 
New  Testament  was  a  living  tongue;  i.  e.,  in  the 
great  Greek  fathers ;  it  is  strongest  in  the  church's 
greatest  era,  and  declines  as  knowledge  and  purity 
decline.  On  the  other  hand,  ejidless  penalty  is  most 
strongly  taught  precisely  in  those  quarters  where  the 
New  Testament  was  less  read  in  the  original,  and 
also  in  the  most  corrupt  ages  of  the  church. "  '° 

icUniversalism  Asserted,  p.  148. 

Note.— Olshausen  declares  that  the  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  end- 
less punishment  and  the  advocacy  of  universal  restoration  has  always  been 
found  in  the  church,  and  that  it  has  "  a  deep  root  in  noble  minds."  His 
language  is  (Com.  I.,  on  Matt,  xii:  32.:) 

„T>aS  ©efiiljl  aber,  roeldjeiS  fid)  in  ben  a3ertf)etbigetn  etnet  apokatas- 
tasis  ton  panton  (bcren  eS  ju  ader  3eit  Biele  gab  iinb  in  unferet  ^eit  meOr 
alg  in  irgenb  elner  friifjern)  gegen  bie  £et)re  won  bet  (Snblofigfeit  bet  Strafen 
ber  (Sottlofen  auSfptld)t,  mag  oft  in  einem  erfd)Iafften  fittUdjen  Seiuiifjlfe^n 
begriinbet  feijn,  bod)  t)at  eS  ol)ne  ^'''ei'e'  fl""^  «'"s  *'^f^  SDutjel  in  ebeln 
<SemUtf)ern;  es  Ift  ber  SluSbcucE  bee  ®ef)nfud)t  naO)  tjoflenbetet  4Jarmonie 
in  ber  ©d)6pfun0." 


XVII. 

A  NOTABLE  FAMILY. 

The  family  group  of  which  Basil  the  Great, 
Macrina  the  Blessed,  the  distinguished  bishop  of 
Nyssa,  Gregory,  and  the  less-known  Peter  of  Se- 
baste  were  members,  deserves  a  volume  rather  than 
the  few  pages  at  our  command.*  Three  of  the  four 
were  bishops  at  one  time.  Macrina,  her  father 
and  mother,  her  grandmother  Macrina,  and  three  of 
her  brothers  were  all  canonized  as  saints  in  the  an- 
cient church.  We  are  not  surprised  that  Butler,  in 
his  ' '  Lives  of  the  Fathers, ' '  should  say ;  "We  admire 
to  see  a  whole  family  of  saints.  This  prodigy  of 
grace,  under  God,  was  owing  to  the  example,  prayers 
and  exhortation  of  the  elder  St.  Macrina,  which 
had  this  wonderful  influence  and  effect.  "^ 
"Macrina  the  Blessed." 

Macrina  was  bom  A.  D.  327.  By  her  intellec- 
tual ability,  force  of  character,  and  earnest  piety  she 
became  the  real  head  of  the  family,  and  largely 
shaped  the  lives  of  her  distinguished  brothers.  She 
early  added  the  name  Thecla  to  her  baptismal  name, 
after  the  proto-martyr  among  Christian  women.  She 

'The  materials  of  this  sketch  and  of  the  article  on  Gregory  Nyssen  were 
chiefly  procured  from  "Our  Holy  Father  Gregory,  Bishop  of  Nyssa's 
Thoughts  concerning  the  Life  of  the  Blessed  Macrina,  his  Sister,  to  the 
Monk  Olympius;"  and  "  Dialogue  Concerning  Life  and  Resurrection,  with 
the  Opinions  of  his  Sister  Macrina;"  Leipsic,  1858.  The  work  is  in  Greek 
and  German.    Also  from  Migne's  Patrologiae,  Vol.  XLVI. 

226 


A  NOTABLE  FAMILY.  227 

was  educated  with  great  care  by  her  mother,  under 
whose  direction  she  committed  to  memory  large  por- 
tions of  the  Bible,  including  the  whole  of  the  Psalms. 

Her  rare  personal  beauty,  great  accomplishments 
and  large  fortune  attracted  many  suitors;  Gregory 
says  she  surpassed  in  loveliness  all  of  her  age  and 
country.  She  was  betrothed  to  a  young  advocate, 
who  was  inspired  and  stimulated  by  her  ambition  and 
zeal,  but  was  cut  off  by  an  early  death.  She  thence- 
forth regarded  herself  as  a  wife  in  the  eyes  of  God, 
and  confident  of  a  reunion  hereafter,  refused  to  listen 
to  offers  of  marriage,  saying  that  her  betrothed  was 
living  in  a  distant  realm,  and  that  the  resurrection 
would  reunite  them. 

A.  D.  349,  when  she  was  twenty-two,  her  father 

died,  and  thenceforth  she  devoted  herself  to  the  care 

of  her  widowed  mother  and  the  fam- 

.  „  .  ^,   ,,,  ily  of  nine  children,  and  large  estates 

A  Saintly  Woman.       -^  .  ',*',, 

which  were  scattered  through  three 

provinces.  Her  rare  executive  abil- 
ity and  personal  devotedness  to  her  mother  and 
brothers  and  sisters  were  phenomenal,  descending  to 
the  most  minute  domestic  offices. 

After  the  death  of  her  father,  and  on  the  death 
of  her  brother  Naucratius,  A.  D.  357,  she  never  left 
her  home,  a  beautiful  place  in  Annesi,  near  Neo- 
Csesarea. 

A.  D.  355,  on  the  return  of  her  brother  Basil 
from  Athens,  full  of  conceit  and  the  ambition  in- 
spired by  his  secular  learning,  Macrina  filled  his 
mind  and  heart  with  the  love  for  a  life  of  Christian 
service  that  animated  herself,  and  he  located  himself 
near  his  sister.     In  355  she  established  a  religious 


228    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

sisterhood  with  her  mother,  and  consecrated  her  life 
to  retirement  and  religious  meditation,  holy  thoughts 
and  exercises — as  she  said,  '  *  to  the  attainment  of 
the  angelical  life. "  The  community  consisted  of  her- 
self, her  mother,  her  female  servants  and  slaves,  and 
soon  devout  women  of  rank  joined  them,  and  the 
community  became  very  prosperous. 

Peter  was  made  presbyter  A.  D.  371.  Her  mother 
died  in  373  and  her  distinguished  brother  in  379.  Her 
own  health  had  failed,  when,  some  months  after  Ba- 
sil's death,  her  brother  Gregory  visited  her.  ^  He 
found  her  in  an  incurable  fever,  stretched  on  planks 
on  the  ground,  and,  according  to  the  ascetic  ideas 
then  beginning  to  prevail,  the  planks  barely  covered 
with  sackcloth.  Gregory  relates  what  followed 
with  great  minuteness.  He  was  overwhelmed  with 
grief  at  Basil's  death.  Macrina  comforted  him, 
and  even  rebuked  him  for  mourning  like  a  heathen 
when  he  possessed  the  Christian's  hope.  He  de- 
scribed the  persecutions  he  had  experienced,  where- 
upon she  chided  and  reminded  him  that  he  ought 
rather  to  thank  his  parents  who  had  qualified  him  to 
be  worthy  of  such  experiences.  Gregory  relates 
that  she  controlled  all  evidences  of  suffering,  and  that 
her  countenance  continually  wore  a  seraphic  smile. 
He  probably  gives  us  her  exact  sentiments  in  his 
own  language  on  universal  restoration,  in  which  she 

rises  into  a  grand  description  of  the 
Macrina's  Relig-  purifying  effects  of  all  future  pun- 
ious  Sentiments.      ishment,  and  the  separation  thereby 

of  the  evil  from  the  good  in  man, 
and  the  entire  destruction  of  all  evil.      Her  words 

"Diet.  Christ.  Biog.  Ill,  p.  780. 


A  NOTABLE  FAMILY.  229 

tell  us  their  mutual  views.     On  the  "all  in  all''^  of 
Paul  she  says: 

"The  Word  seems  to  me  to  lay  down  the  doctrine 
of  the  perfect  obliteration  of  wickedness,  for  if  God 
shall  be  in  all  things  that  are,  obviously  wickedness 
shall  not  be  in  them. "  "  For  it  is  necessary  that  at  some 
time  evil  should  be  removed  utterly  and  entirely 
from  the  realm  of  being.  *  *  *  Pqj.  since  by  its 
very  nature  evil  cannot  exist  apart  from  free  choice, 
when  all  free  choice  becomes  in  the  power  of  God, 
shall  not  evil  advance  to  utter  annihilation  so  that 
no  receptacle  for  it  at  all  shall  be  left? " 

In  this  conversation  in  which  the  sister  sustains 
by  far  the  leading  part,  the  resurrection  {anastasis) 
and  the  restoration  {apokatastasis)  are  regarded  as 
synonymous,  as  when  Macrina  declares  that  "the 
resurrection  is  only  the  restoration  of  human  nature 
to  its  pristine  condition. "  * 

On  Phil,  ii:  10,  Macrina  declares.  "When  the 
evil  has  been  extirpated  in  the  long  cycles  of  the 
aeons  nothing  shall  be  left  outside  the  boundaries  of 
good,  but  even  from  them  shall  be  unanimously 
uttered  the  confession  of  the  Lordship  of  Christ.  "^ 

She  said :  * '  The  process  of  healing  shall  be  pro- 
portioned to  the  measure  of  evil  in  each  of  us,  and 
when  the  evil  is  purged  and  blotted  out,  there  shall 
come  in  each  place  to  each  immortality  and  life  and 
honor." 


^IlavTa  €1/   Tracrtv   ("  all  things  in  all  men.") 

*p.  154,  Oehler's  ed.  Life  and  Resurrection. 

f'Life  and  Resurrection,  p.  68.  In  this  passage  Macrina  employs  the 
word  aionion  in  its  proper  sense  of  ages.  The  German  version  translates 
it  centuries  (jahrhunderte). 


230     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Seeing  the  weariness  of  her  brother  she  bade  him 
rest.     Revisiting  her  at  the  close  of  the  day  she  re- 
viewed thankfully  her  past  life  and 

rejoiced  that  she  had  never  in  her  life 
Her  Last  Days.         r       j  i       -l    j        i     j 

refused  any  one  who  had  asked   a 

charity  of  her,  and  had  never  been 

compelled  to  ask  a  chari-ty  for  herself. 

Next  morning,  Gregory  says,  she  consoled  and 
cheered  him  as  long  as  she  could  talk,  and  when  her 
voice  failed  she  conversed  with  her  hands  and  silent 
lips.  Repeating  the  sign  of  the  cross  to  the  latest 
moment  she  finished  her  life  and  her  prayers  to- 
gether. Her  last  words  were  in  advocacy  of  the 
doctrine  of  universal  salvation,  of  which  Gregory's 
writings  are  full.  ^ 

She  was  buried  by  her  brother  in  the  grave  of  her 
parents,  in  the  Chapel  of  the  "  Forty  Martyrs." 

We  have  here  a  most  suggestive  picture  to  con- 
template. Macrina  at  the  head  of  a  sisterhood,  con- 
sisting of  several  hundred  women  of 

iV\3crin3  & 

_,  ,  ,.  all  grades,  from  her  own  rank  down 

Representative  ^  ' 

Universalist.  ^^  slaves.     Their  sole  object  was  the 

cultivation  of  the  religious  life.  Can 
it  be  otherwise  than  that  the  views  of  human  destiny 
phe  held  were  dwelt  upon  by  her  in  the  religious 
exercises  of  the  institution,  and  must  they  not  have 
been  generally  sympathized  with  by  the  devout  in- 
mates? And  can  we  doubt  that  those  who  had  here 
retired  from  the  world  to   cultivate  their  religious 


«Butler,  "Lives  of  the  Saints,"  Vol.  VIL  pp.  260,  261.  This  Catholic 
work  does  not  make  the  faintest  allusion  to  Macrina's  Universalism,  And 
even  our  Dr.  Ballou.  in  hia  valuable  Ancient  History,  while  he  mentions  the 
grandmother,  overlooks  the  far  more  eminent  granddaughter. 


A  NOTABLE  FAMILY.  231 

natures,  were  representative  in  their  views  of  human 
destiny  of  the  Christian  community  generally?  The 
fact  that  Macrina,  and  her  brothers,  high  function- 
aries in  the  church,  express  Universalism,  not  polem- 
ically or  disputatiously,  but  as  a  matter  uncontested, 
should  persuade  us  that  it  was  the  unchallenged  sen- 
timent of  the  time. 

Curiously  enough.  Cave,  in  his  "  Lives  of  the 
Fathers,"  questions  Macrina's  Universalism.  In 
his  life  of  Gregory  he  says,  after  sketching  Ma- 
crina's life:  "  She  is  said  by  some  to  have  been  in- 
fected with  Origen's  opinions,  but  finding  it  reported 
by  no  other  than  Nicephorus,  I  suppose  he  mis- 
took her  for  her  grandmother,  Macrina,  auditor  of 
St.  Gregory,  who  had  Origen  for  his  tutor, "  This  is 
a  specimen  instance  of  the  manner  in  which  histo- 
rians have  read  history  through  theological  spectacles, 
and  written  history  in  ink  squeezed  from  their  creeds. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  elder  Macrina  was  of 
the  same  faith  as  her  granddaughter,  for  she  was  a 
disciple  of  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  who  idolized 
Origen.  On  the  testimony  of  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
"the  blessed  Macrina"  lived  a  holy  life  and  died 
the  death  of  a  perfect  Christian,  molded,  guided 
and  sustained  by  the  influence  and  power  of  Univer- 
salism. And  the  careful  reader  of  the  history  of 
those  early  days  can  but  feel  that  she  represents 
the  prevailing  religious  faith  of  the  three  first  and 
three  best  centuries  of  the  church. 
Basil  the  Great. 

Basil  the  Great  was  born  in  Caesarea,  A.  D.  329. 
His  family  were  wealthy  Christians.  The  preceding 
sketch  shows  that  his  grandmother  Macrina,  and 


232     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

his  mother,  Emmelia,  were  canonized.  His  broth- 
ers, Gregory  of  Nyssa,  and  Peter  of  Sebaste,  and 
his  sister  Macrina  are  all  saints  in  both  the  Greek 
and  the  Roman  churches.  His  was  a  most  lovable 
and  loving  spirit.  His  works  abound  in  descriptions 
of  the  beauties  of  nature,  which  is  something  rare  in 
ancient  literature,  outside  of  the  Bible.  He  resided 
for  many  years  in  a  romantic  locality,  with  his 
mother  and  sister.  A.  D.  364,  against  his  will,  he 
was  made  presbyter,  and  in  370  was  elected  bishop  of 
Csesarea.  He  died  A.  D.  379.  He  devoted  himself  to 
the  sick,  and  founded  the  splendid  hospital  Basilias, 
for  lepers,  of  whom  he  took  care,  not  even  neglect- 
ing to  kiss  them  in  defiance  of  contagion.  He  stands 
in  the  highest  group  of  pulpit  orators,  theologians, 
pastors,  and  rulers,  and  most  eminent  writers  and 
noble  men  of  the  church's  first  five  hundred  years, 
Basil  says;  "The  Lord's  peace  is  co-extensive 
with  all  time.  For  all  things  shall  be  subject  to  him, 
and  all  things  shall  acknowledge  his 

„   .,,  ,  empire;  and  when  God  shall  be  all  in 

Basil's  Language.        .^   ^,  ,  .^      ,.         ,, 

all,  those  who  now  excite  discord  by 

revolts  having  been  quite  pacified, 

shall  praise  God    in    peaceful    concord."     *    *    * 

On  the  words  in  Isaiah,  i:  24:    "My  anger  will  not 

cease,  I  will  burn  them,"  he  says,  **And  why  is  this? 

In  order  that  I  may  purify." 

Basil  was  "the  strenuous  champion  of  orthodoxy 

in  the  East,   the  restorer  of  union  to  the   divided 

Oriental  church,  and  the  promoter  of  unity  between 

the  East  and  the  West."      Theodoret  styles  him 

"one  of  the  lights  of  the  world. "  ' 

^History  of  the  Church,  p.  176. 


A  NOTABLE  FAMILY. 


233 


Among  other  quotable  passages  is  this:  "For  we 
have  often  observed  that  it  is  the  sins  which  are  con- 
sumed, not  the  very  persons  to  whom  the  sins  have 
befallen. "  But  there  are  passages  to  be  found  in  Basil 
susceptible  of  sustaining  the  doctrine  of  interminable 
punishment.  This  great  theologian  was  infected 
with  the  wretched  idea  prevalent  in  his  day,  that  the 
wise  could  accept  truths  not  to  be  taught  to  the  mul- 
titude. But  the  brother  of,  and  co-laborer  with, 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  and  the  "  Blessed  Macrina,  "he 
could  but  have  sympathized  with  their  sublime  faith. 
Cave  scarcely  alludes  to  Basil's  views  of  destmy, 
but  faintly  intimates  the  truth  when  he  says:  **  For 
though  his  enemies,  to  serve  their 
own  ends  by  blasting  his  reputation, 
did  sometimes  charge  him  with  cor- 
rupting the  Christian  doctrine,  and 
entertaining  impious  and  unorthodox  sentiments, 
and  that  too  in  some  of  the  greater  articles,  yet  the 
objection,  when  looked  into,  did  quickly  vanish,  him- 
self solemnly  professing  upon  this  occasion,  that 
however  in  other  respects  he  had  enough  to  answer 
for,  yet  this  was  his  glory  and  triumph,  that  he  had 
never  entertained  false  notions  of  God,  but  had  con- 
stantly kept  the  faith  pure  and  inviolate,  as  he  had 
received  it  from  his  ancestors. " 

Remembering  his  sainted  grandmother,  Macrina, 
and  his  spiritual  fathers,  Origen  and  Clemens  Alex- 
andrinus,  we  can  understand  his  disclaimer.  ^ 

Notwithstanding  Basil's  probable  belief  in  the 
final  restoration,  he  employs  as  severe  language  in 

^Lives  of  the  Fathers,  II,  p.  451. 


234    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

reference  to  the  sinner's  sufferings  as  do  any  of 
the  fathers  who  have  left  no  record  on  the  subject 
of  man's  final  destiny.  He  says:  "  With  what  body 
shall  it  endure  those  interminable  and  unendurable 
scourges,  where  is  the  quenchless  fire  and  the  worm 
punishing  deathlessly,  and  the  dark  and  horrible  abyss 
of  hell,  and  the  bitter  groans,  and  the  vehement 
wailing,  and  the  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth, 
where  the  evils  have  no  end. "  ^ 

He  is  said  to  have  had  learning  the  most  ample, 
eloquence  of  the  highest  order,  forensic  powers  un- 
surpassed, literary  ability  unequaled, 

_  ,  .  ,  o  .,  "a  style  of  writing  admirable,  al- 
Eulogies  of  Basil.  ■'  **  . 

most  inimitable,  proper,  perspicuous, 

significant,    soft,  smooth   and   easy, 

and  yet  persuasive  and  powerful;"  as  -a  philosopher 

as  wise  as  he  was  accomplished   as  a   theologian. 

Erasmus  gives  him  the  pre-eminence  above  Pericles, 

IsocRATES  and  Demosthenes,  and  ranks  him  higher 

than  Athanasius,  Nazianzen,  Nyssen  and  Chrysos- 

TOM.     And  Cave  exhausts  eulogy  and  panegyric  in 

describing  his  "  moral  and  divine  accomplishments," 

and  closes  his  account  by  saying:   '*  Perhaps  it  is  an 

instance  hardly  to  be  paralleled  in  any  age,  for  three 

brothers,  all  men  of  note  and  eminency,  to  be  bishops 

at  the  same  time.  "  '^'^     He   might   have   added — and 

with  a  sister  their  full  equal. 

Basil's  grand  spirit  can  be  seen  in  his  reply  to 

the  emperor,  when  the  latter  threatened  him,  should 

he  not  obey  the  sovereign's  command.     His  noble 

answer  compelled  the  emperor  to  forego  his  purpose. 

»Ep.  XLVI,  ClassisI,  ad  virginem. 
»0Cave,  Lives  of  the  Fathers,  II,  397. 


A  NOTABLE  FAMILY.  235 

Basil  said  he  did  not  fear  the  emperor's  threats; 
confiscation  could  not  harm  one  who  only  possessed 
a  suit  of  plain  clothes  and  a  few  books;  he  could 
not  be  banished  for  he  could  find  a  home  anywhere, 
as  the  earth  was  God's,  and  himself  everywhere  a 
stranger;  his  frail  body  could  endure  but  little  tor- 
ture, and  death  would  be  a  favor,  as  it  would  only 
conduct  him  to  God,  his  eternal  home. 

Basil  says  in  one  place,  in  a  work  attributed  to 
him,  "The  mass  of  men  (Christians)  say  that  there 
is   to  be  an  end    of  punishment  to 
p,j^  .  ,.  those  who  are    punished."    ^^  If  the 

Universalists.  work  is  not  Basil's,  the  testimony  as 

to  the  state  of  opinion  at  that  time  is 
no  less  valuable:  "  The  mass  of  men  say  that  there 
is  to  be  an  end  of  punishment." 

Gregory  Nyssen. 

He  was  born  about  A.  D.  335,  and  died  390.  He 
was  made  bishop  372.  From  the  time  he  was  thirty- 
five  until  his  death,  he,  Didymus  and  Diodorus  of  Tar- 
sus, were  the  unopposed  advocates  of  universal  redemp- 
tion. Most  unique  and  valuable  of  all  his  works  was 
the  biography  of  his  sister,  described  in  our  sketch  of 
Macrina.  His  descriptions  of  her  life,  conversations 
and  death  are  gems  of  patristic  literature.  They 
overflow  with  declarations  of  universal  salvation. 

Gregory  was  devoted  to  the  memory  of  Origen 
as  his  spiritual  godfather,  and  teacher,  as  were  his 
saintly  brother  and  sister.  He  has  well  been  called 
"  the  flower  of  orthodoxy. "  He  declared  that  Christ 
"frees  mankind  from  their  wickedness,  healing  the 

iiDe  Asceticis. 


236     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

very  inventor  of  wickedness."  He  asks:  "What  is 
then  the  scope  of  St.  Paul's  argument  in  this  place? 
That  the  nature  of  evil  shall  one  day  be  wholly  ex- 
terminated, and  divine,  immortal  goodness  embrace 
within  itself  all  intelligent  natures ;  so  that  of  all  who 
were  made  by  God,  not  one  shall  be  exiled  from  his 
kingdom ;  when  all  the  alloy  of  evil  that  like  a  cor- 
rupt matter  is  mingled  in  things,  shall  be  dissolved, 
and  consumed  in  the  furnace  of  purifying  fire,  and 
everything  that  had  its  origin  from  God  shall  be  re- 
stored to  its  pristine  state  of  purity. "  "  This  is  the 
end  of  our  hope,  that  nothing  shall  be  left  contrary 
to  the  good,  but  that  the  divine  life,  penetrating  all 
things,  shall  absolutely  destroy  death  from  existing 
things,  sin  having  been  previously  destroyed,"  etc.^^ 
"For  it  is  evident  that  God  will  in  truth  be  '  in  all ' 
when  there  shall  be  no  evil  in  existence,  when 
every  created  being  is  at  harmony  with  itself,  and 
every  tongue  shall  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is 
Lord;  when  every  creature  shall  have  been  made 
one  body.  Now  the  body  of  Christ,  as  I  have  often 
said,  is  the  whole  of  humanity. "  ^^  On  the  Psalms, 
' '  Neither  is  sin  from  eternity,  nor  will  it  last  to  eter- 
nity. For  that  which  did  not  always  exist  shall  not 
last  forever. " 

His  language  demonstrates  the  fact  that  the  word 
aionios  did  not  have  the  meaning  of  endless  duration 
in  his  day.  He  distinctly  says:  "Whoever  con- 
siders the  divine  power  will  plainly  perceive  that  it 
is  able  at  length  to  restore  by  means  of  the  aionion 

i^Life  and  Resurrection  and  Letter  to  the  Monk  Olympius. 
i-^Cat.  Orat.  ch.  26,  Migne,  Tract,  Filius  subjicietur,— on  ICor.  xv:28— 
pasa  he  anthropine  phusis,  "The  whole  of  humanity." 


A  NOTABLE  FAMILY.  237 

purgation  and  expiatory  sufferings,  those  who  have 
gone  even  to  this  extremity  of  wickedness."  Thus 
"everlasting"  punishment  will  end  in  salvation,  ac- 
cording to  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  fathers  of  the 
Fourth  Century. 

In  his  "Sermo  Catecheticus  Magnus,"  a  work  of 
forty  chapters,  for  the  teaching  of  theological  learners, 

written  to  show  the  harmony  of 
Gregory's  Christianity    with    the    instincts  of 

Language.  the  human  heart,    he  asserts   "the 

annihilation  of  evil,  the  restitution  of 
all  things,  and  the  final  restoration  of  evil  men  and 
evil  spirits  to  the  blessedness  of  union  with  God,  so 
that  he  may  be  'all  in  all,*  embracing  all  things 
endued  with  sense  and  reason" — doctrines  derived  by 
him  from  Origen.  To  save  the  credit  of  a  doctor  of 
the  church  of  acknowledged  orthodoxy,  it  has  been 
asserted  from  the  time  of  Germanus  of  Constanti- 
nople, that  these  passages  were  foisted  in  by  hereti- 
cal writers.  But  there  is  no  foundation  for  this 
hypothesis,  and  we  may  safely  say  that  "the  wish  is 
father  to  the  thought, "  and  that  the  final  restitution 
of  all  things  was  distinctly  held  and  taught  by  him 
in  his  writings. 

He  teaches  that  "  when  death  approaches  to  life, 
and  darkness  to  light,  and  the  corruptible  to  the 
incorruptible,  the  inferior  is  done  away  with  and 
reduced  to  non-existence,  and  the  thing  purged  is 
benefited,  just  as  the  dross  is  purged  from  gold  by 
fire.  *  *  *  In  the  same  way  in  the  long  cir- 
cuits of  time,  when  the  evil  of  nature  which  is  now 
mingled  and  implanted  in  them  has  been  taken  away, 
whensoever  the  restoration   (diroKaTao-Tacrts)   to   their 


238     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

old  condition  of  the  things  that  now  lie  in  wickedness 
takes  place,  there  will  be  a  unanimous  thanksgiving 
from  the  whole  creation,  both  of  those  who  have  been 
punished  (KeKoXaa-fiivayv)  in  the  purification  [KaOdpa-ex) 
and  of  those  who  have  not  at  all  needed  purification) 

(  Ka^apcreojs) . 

"I  believe  that  punishment  will  be  administered 
in  proportion  to  each  one's  corruptness.  *  *  * 
Therefore  to  whom  there  is  much  corruption  attached, 
with  him  it  is  necessary  that  the  purgatorial  time 
which  is  to  consume  it  should  be  great,  and  of  long 
duration ;  but  to  him  in  whom  the  wicked  disposition 
has  been  already  in  part  subjected,  a  proportionate 
degree  of  that  sharper  and  more  vehement  punish- 
ment shall  be  remitted.  All  evil,  however,  must  at 
length  be  entirely  removed  from  everything,  so  that 
it  shall  no  more  exist.  For  such  being  the  nature  of 
sin  that  it  cannot  exist  without  a  corrupt  motive,  it 
must  of  course  be  perfectly  dissolved,  and  wholly  de- 
stroyed,  so  that  nothing  can  remain  a  receptacle  of  it, 
when  all  motive  and  influence  shall  spring  from  God 
alone,"  etc. 

The  manner  in  which  historians  and  biographers 
have  been  guilty  of  siippressio  vcri  by  their  preju- 
dices or  obtuseness  to  fact,  is  illus- 
Perversion  of  trated  by  Cave  in  his  "Lives  of  the 

Historians.  Fathers,  "    when,    speaking  -of   this 

most  out-spoken  Universalist,  he 
says,  that  on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  his  sister 
Macrina,  "he  penned  his  excellent  book  ( '  Life  and 
Resurrection, ' )  wherein  if  some  later  hand  have  in- 
terspersed some  few  Origenian  dogmata,  it  is  no 
more  than  what  they  have  done  to  some  few  other 


A  NOTABLE   FAMILY.  239 

of  his  tracts,  to  give  his  thoughts  vent  upon  those 
noble  arguments.  "     The   "later"  hands  were  im- 
pelled by  altogether  different  "dogmata,  "  and  sup- 
pressed or  modified  Origen's  doctrines,  as  Rufinus 
confesses,  instead  of  inserting  them  in  the  works  of 
their  predecessors.      If  Gregory  has  suffered  at  all 
at  the  hands  of  mutilators,  it  has  been  by  those  who 
have  minimized  and  not  those  who  have  magnified 
his  Universalism.   But  this  aspersion  originated  with 
Germanus,  bishop  of  Constantinople  (A.  D.  730),  in 
harmony  with  a  favorite  mode  of  opposition  to  Uni- 
versalism.    In  Germanus's   Antapodotikos    he    en- 
deavored to  show  that  all  the  passages  in  Gregory 
which  treat  of  the  apokatastasis  were  interpolated 
by  heretics.  "    This  charge  has  often  been  echoed 
since.     But  the  prejudiced  Daille  calls  it   "the  last 
resort  of  those  who  with  a  stupid  and  absurd  perti- 
nacity will  have  it  that  the  ancients  wrote  nothing 
different  from  the  faith  at  present  received;  for  the 
whole  of  Gregory  Nyssen's  orations  are  so  deeply 
imbued  with  the  pestiferous  doctrine  in  question, 
than  it  can  have  been  inserted  by  none  other  than 
the  author  himself.  "^^    The  conduct  of  historians, 
not  only  of  those  who  were  theologically  warped, 
but  of  such  as  sought  to  be  impartial  on  the  opinions 
of  the  early  Christians  on  man's   final  destiny,   is 
something  phenomenal.     Even  Lecky  writes:  "  Ori- 
gen,  and  his  disciple  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  in  a  some- 
what hesitating  manner,  diverged  from  the  prevail- 
ing opinion  (eternal  torments)  and  strongly  inclined 
*  "*     *     to  the  belief  in  the  ultimate  salvation  of  all. 

"Photius,  Cod.,233. 

i5De  Usu  Patrum,  lib.  II,  cap.  4. 


240    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

But  they  were  alone  in  their  opinion.  With  these 
two  exceptions,  all  the  fathers  proclaimed  the  eter- 
nity of  torments. "  ^^  It  is  shown  in  this  volume  that 
not  only  were  Diodore,  Theodore,  and  others  of 
the  Antiochan  school  Universalists  but  that  for  cen- 
turies four  theological  schools  taught  the  doctrine. 
A  most  singular  fact  in  this  connection  is  that  Prof. 
Shedd,  elsewhere  in  this  book,  denies  his  own  state- 
ment similar  to  Lecky's,  as  shown  on  a  previous 
page.  This  is  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Schaff  in  his 
valuable  history: 

"Gregory  adopts  the  doctrine  of  the  final  resto- 
ration of  all  things.  The  plan  of  redemption  is  in 
his  view  absolutely  universal,  and  embraces  all  spir- 
itual beings.  Good  is  the  only  positive  reality ;  evil 
is  the  negative,  the  non-existent,  and  must  finally 
abolish  itself,  because  it  is  not  of  God.  Unbelievers 
must  indeed  pass  through  a  second  death,  in  order  to 
be  purged  from  the  filthiness  of  the  flesh.  But  God 
does  not  give  them  up,  for  they  are  his  property, 
spiritual  natures  allied  to  him.  His  love,  which 
draws  pure  souls  easily  and  without  pain  to  itself, 
becomes  a  purifying  fire  to  all  who  cleave  to  the 
earthly,  till  the  impure  element  is  driven  off.  As 
all  comes  forth  from  God,  so  must  all  return  into 
him  at  last.  "  "Universal  salvation  (including  Sa- 
tan) was  clearly  taught  by  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  a  pro- 
found thinker  of  the  school  of  Origen.  " 

In  his  comments  on  the  Psalms,  Gregory  says: 
"  By  which  God  shows  that  neither  is  sin  from  eter- 
nity nor  will  it  last  to  eternity.     Wickedness  being 

I'Lecky's  RatiDnalism  in  Europe,  I,  p.  316. 


A  NOTABLE  FAMILY.  241 

thus  destroyed,  and  its  imprint  being  left  in  none, 
all  shall  be  fashioned  after  Christ,  and  in  all  that  one 
character  shall  shine,  which  originally  was  imprinted 
on  our  nature. "     "Sin,     *     *     *     whose  end  is  ex- 
tinction, and  a  change  to  nothingness   *     *    *    from 
evil  to  a  state  of  blessedness."    On  Ps.  Ivii:  i :   "  Sin 
*     *     *     is  like  a  plant  on  a  house  top,  not  rooted, 
not  sown,  not  ploughed  in    *    *    *    in  the  resto- 
ration to  goodness  of  all  things,  it  passes  away  and 
vanishes.     So  not  even  a  trace  of  the  evil  which  now 
aboimds  in  us,  shall  remain,  etc."     If  sin  be  not 
cured  here  its  cure  will  be  effected  hereafter.     And 
God's  threats  are  that    "through  fear  we  may  be 
trained  to  avoid  evil ;  but  by  those  who  are  more  in- 
telligent it  (the  judgment)  is  believed  to  be  a  medi- 
cine,'"  etc.     "God   himself  is  not  really    seen  in 
wrath."     "  The  soul  which  is  imited  to  sin  must  be 
set  in  the  fire,  so  that  that  which  is  unnatural  and 
vile    *    *    *    i-nay  be  removed,  consumed  by  the 
aionion  fire. "  "    Thus  the  {aionion')  fire  was  regarded 
by  Gregory  as  purifying.     "  If  it  (the  soul)  remains 
(in  the  present  life)  the  healing  is  accomplished  in 

the    life    beyond."       Et  8c  d^epaTreuros  /xei/ei  cv  Tw  /ACT a 
TttTJTa   fiii^  TafxieveTai  rj  depaircia.      (Orat.  Catech. ) 

Farrar  tells  us:  "There  is  no  scholar  of  any 
weight  in  any  school  of  theology  who  does  not  now 
admit  that  two  at  least  of  thethree  great  Cappa- 
docians  believed  in  the  final  and  universal  restor- 
ation of  human  souls.  *  *  *  And  the  remark- 
able fact  is  that  Gregory  developed  these  views 
without  in  any  way  imperiling  his  reputation  for 


"On  the  Psalms. 


242    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

orthodoxy,  and  without  the  faintest  reminder  that 
he  was  deviating  from  the  strictest  paths  of  Catholic 
opinion."  Professor  Plumptre  truthfully  says:  "  His 
Universalism  is  as  wide  and  unlimited  as  that  of 
Bishop  Newton  of  Bristol." 

The  Council  of  Constantinople,  A.  D.  381,  which 
perfected  the  Nicene  Creed,  was  participated  in  by 
the  two  Gregorys;  Gregory  Nazian- 
Opinions  in  the  zen  presided  and  Gregory  Nyssen 
Fourth  Century.  added  the  clauses  to  the  Nicene 
creed  that  are  in  in  italics  on  a  pre- 
vious page  in  this  volume.  They  were  both  Univer- 
salists.  Would  any  council,  in  ancient  or  modern 
times,  composed  of  believers  in  endless  punishment, 
select  an  avowed  Universalist  to  preside  over  its  de- 
liberations, and  guide  its  "doctrinal  transactions?" 
And  can  anyone  consistently  think  that  Gregory's 
Universalism  was  unacceptable  to  the  great  council 
over  which  he  presided?  "  Some  of  the  strongest 
statements  of  Gregory's  views  will  be  found  in  his 
enthusiastic  reports  of  Macrina's  conversations,  re- 
lated in  the  preceding  chapter,  with  which,  every 
reader  will  see,  he  was  in  the  fullest  sympathy.  Be- 
sides the  works  of  Gregory  named  above,  passages 
expressive  of  universal  salvation  may  be  found  in 
"Oratiode  Mortuis,"  "De  Perfectione  Christiani, " 
etc. 

"By  the  days  of  Gregory  of  Nyssa  it  (Univer- 
salism), aided  by  the  unrivaled  learning,  genius 
and  piety  of  Origen,  had  prevailed,  and  had  suc- 
ceeded in  leavening,  not  the  East  alone,  but  much 
of  the  West.  While  the  doctrine  of  annihila- 
tion has  practically  disappeared,    Universalism  has 


A  NOTABLE  FAMILY.  243 

established  itself,  has  become  the  prevailing  opin- 
ion, even  in  quarters  antagonistic  to  the  school 
of  Alexandria.  *  *  *  The  church  of  North  Af- 
rica, in  the  person  of  Augustine,  enters  the  field. 
The  Greek  tongue  soon  becomes  unknown  in  the 
West,  and  the  Greek  fathers  forgotten.  *  *  *  On 
the  throne  of  Him  whose  name  is  Love  is  now  seated 
a  stern  Judge  (a  sort  of  Roman  governor).  The 
Father  is  lost  in  the  Magistrate. "  ^^ 

Dean  Stanley  candidly  ascribes  to  Gregory 
"  the  blessed  hope  that  God's  justice  and  mercy  are 
not  controlled  by  the  power  of  evil,  that  sin  is  not 
everlasting,  and  that  in  the  world  to  come  punish- 
ment will  be  corrective  and  not  final,  and  will  be  or- 
dered by  a  love  and  justice,  the  height  and  depths 
of  which  we  cannot  here  fathom  or  comprehend."  ^^ 

isAllin,  Univ.  Asserted,  p.  169. 
i^Essays  on  Church  and  State. 


XVIII. 
ADDITIONAL  AUTHORITIES. 

Going  back  a  little  we  find  several  authors  whose 
works  in  part  have  escaped  the  ravages  of  time  and 
the  destructive  hostility  of  opponents.  We  have 
found  ourselves  a  hundred  times  wishing,  while 
pursuing  these  enquiries,  that  the  literature  of  the 
first  five  centuries  could  have  been  printed  and  scat- 
tered to  the  world's  ends,  instead  of  having  been  lim- 
ited, as  it  was,  of  course,  before  the  invention  of 
printing,  to  a  few  manuscripts  so  easily  destroyed  by 
the  bigoted  opponents  of  our  faith  into  whose  hands 
they  fell.  We  should  have  many  fold  more  testi- 
monies than  have  survived  to  tell  the  story  of  prim- 
itive belief. 

Marcellus  of  Ancyra,  A.  D.  315,  quoted  by 
EusEBius,  says :  ' '  For  what  else  do  the  words  mean, 
' until  the  times  of  the  restitution '  (Acts,  iii :  21 ),  but 
that  the  apostle  designed  to  point  out  that  time  in 
which  all  things  partake  of  that  perfect  restoration, " 

Titus  of  Bostra,  A.  D.  338-378.  The  editor  of 
his  works  says  that  Titus  was  "the  most  learned 
among  the  bishops  of  his  age,  and  a  most  famous 
champion  of  the  truth. "  Tillemont  unwillingly  ad- 
mits that  "  he  seems  to  have  followed  the  dangerous 
error  ascribed  to  Origen,  that  the  pains  of  the  damned, 
and  even  those  of  the  demons  themselves,  will  not  be 

244 


ADDITIONAL  AUTHORITIES.  245 

eternal."  *    Certainly  Titus's  own  language  justifies 
this  excellent  suspicion.     He  says : 

"Thus  the  mystery  was  completed  by  the  Savior 
in  order  that,   perfection  being  completed  through 
all   things,    and  in    all   things,    by 
Words  of  Titus        Christ,  all  universally  shall  be  made 
of  Bostra.  one  through  Christ   and  in  Christ." 

He  says  again :  ' '  The  very  abyss  of 
torment  is  indeed  the  place  of  chastisement,  but  it 
is  not  eternal  {aionion)  nor  did  it  exist  in  the  orig- 
inal constitution  of  nature.  It  was  afterwards,  as 
a  remedy  for  sinners,  that  it  might  cure  them. 
And  the  punishments  are  holy,  as  they  are  reme- 
dial and  salutary  in  their  effect  on  transgressors; 
for  they  are  inflicted,  not  to  preserve  them  in  their 
wickedness,  but  to  make  them  cease  from  their 
wickedness.  The  anguish  of  their  suffering  com- 
pels them  to  break  off  their  vices.  *  *  *  If 
death  were  an  evil,  blame  would  rightfully  fall  on 
him  who  appointed  it. "  ^ 

Ambrose  of  Milan. 

Ambrose  of  Milan,  A.  D.  340-398,  says:  **What 
then  hinders  our  believing  that  he  who  is  beaten 
small  as  the  dust  is  not  annihilated,  but  is  changed 
for  the  better ;  so  that,  instead  of  an  earthly  man,  he 
is  made  a  spiritual  man,  and  our  believing  that  he 
who  is  destroyed,  is  so  destroyed  that  all  taint  is  re- 
moved, and  there  remains  but  what  is  pure  and 
clean.     And  in  God's  saying  of  the  adversaries  of 

'Tillemont,  p.  671.    Quoted  by  Lardner     Vol.  Ill,  p.  273. 

^Migne,  Vol.  XVIIl,  p.  1118.  Observe  here  that  aionios  is  used  in  the 
sense  of  endless;  also  that  the  word  rendered  "abyss"  is  the  word  translated 
'  bottomless  pit"  la  Revelation. 


246    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Jerusalem,  '  They  shall  be  as  though  they  were  not,' 
you  are  to  understand  they  shall  exist  substantially, 
and  as  converted,   but  shall  not  exist  as  enemies. 

*  *  *  God  gave  death,  not  as  a  penalty,  but  as  a 
remedy;  death  was  given  for  a  remedy  as  the  end  of 
evils.  "***'<  How  shall  the  sinner  exist  in  the 
future,  seeing  the  place  of  sin  cannot  be  of  long  con- 
tinuance? "^  *  *  *  Because  God's  image  is  that 
of  the  one  God,  it  like  Him  starts  from  one,  and  is 
diffused  to  infinity.  And,  once  again,  from  an  in- 
finite number  all  things  return  into  one  as  into  their 
end,  because  God  is  both  beginning  and  end  of  all 
things.  4  *  *  *  iio\Y  then,  shall  (all  things)  be 
subject  to  Christ?  In  this  very  way  in  which  the 
Lord  Himself  said.  '  Take  my  yoke  upon  you, '  for 
it  is  not  the  untamed  who  bear  the  yoke,  but  the 
humble  and  gentle,  *  *  *  so  that  in  Jesus's  name 
every  knee  shall  bend.  *  *  *  jg  this  subjection 
of  Christ  now  completed  ?  Not  at  all.  Because  the 
subjection  of  Christ  consists  not  in  few,  but  in  all. 

*  *  *  Christ  will  be  subject  to  God  in  us  by 
means  of  the  obedience  of  all ;  *  *  *  when  vices 
having  been  cast  away,  and  sin  reduced  to  submis- 
sion, one  spirit  of  all  people,  in  one  sentiment,  shall 
with  one  accord  begin  to  cleave  to  God,  then  God 
will  be  all  in  all ,  *  *  *  when  all  then  shall  have  be- 
lieved and  done  the  will  of  God,  Christ  will  be  all  and 
in  all ;  and  when  Christ  shall  be  all.  in  all,  God  will  be 
all  in  all.  •*  *  *  *  At  present  he  is  overall  by  his 
power,  but  it  is  necessary  that  he  be  in  all  by  their 

»0n  Ps.  xxxvii. 

*Epis.  Lib.  I. 
6De  Fide. 


ADDITIONAL  AUTHORITIES.  247 

free  will:^  *  *  *  So  the  Son  of  man  came  to 
save  that  which  was  lost,  that  is,  all,  for,  *As  in 
Adam  all  died,  so,  too,  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made 
alive.  '"^  "For,  if  the  guilty  die,  who  have  been  un- 
willing to  leave  the  path  of  sin,  even  against  their 
will  they  still  gain,  not  of  nature  but  of  fault,  that 
they  may  sin  no  more."  «  *  *  "Death  is  not 
bitter;  but  to  the  sinner  it  is  bitter,  and  yet  life  is 
more  bitter,  for  it  is  a  deadlier  thing  to  live  in  sin 
than  to  die  in  sin,  because  the  sinner  as  long  as  he 
lives  increases  in  sin.  but  if  he  dies  he  ceases  to 
sin.  "  ^ 

Cave  says  that  Ambrose  quotes  and  adapts  many 
of  the  writings  of  the  Greek  Fathers,  particularly 
Origen;  and  Jerome  declares  that  Ambrose  was  in- 
debted to  DiDYMUs  for  the  most  of  his  de  Spiritu 
Sanctu.  Both  these,  it  will  be  noted,  were  Univer- 
salists.  Augustine  tells  us  that  every  day  after  his 
morning  devotions  Ambrose  studied  the  Scriptures, 
chiefly  by  the  aid  of  the  Greek  commentators,  and 
especially  of  Origen  and  HippOLYTUS,and  of  Didvmus 
and  Basil.  ®  Three  of  these  at  least  were  Universal- 
ists.  "Perhaps  his  most  original  book  is  *0n  the 
Blessing  of  Death,  '  in  which  he  takes  a  singularly 
mild  view  of  the  punishment  of  the  wicked,  ex- 
presses his  belief  in  a  purifying  fire,  and  argues  that 
whatever  that  punishment  be,  it  is  a  state  distinctly 
preferable  to  a  sinful  life.  His  eschatology  was 
deeply  influenced  by  the  larger  hopes  of  Origen.  "  ^® 

•On  Ps.  Ixii. 

'On  Luke,  xv.  3. 

^Blessing  of  Death-.  Ch.  vii. 

»Conf.  vi  ,3,  Ep.  xlvii.  1. 

loParrar:  Lives  of  the  Fathers,  II,  p.  144. 


248    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

The  language  of  Ambrose  in  his  comments  on 
Ps.  cxviii,  is  as  follows:  "Dives  in  the  Gospel,  al- 
though a  sinner,  is  pressed  with  penal  agonies,  that 
he  may  escape  the  sooner.  "  ^^  *  #  ♦  Again: 
"Those  who  do  not  come  to  the  first,  but  are  re- 
served for  the  second  resurrection,  shall  be  burned 
till  they  fill  up  the  times  between  the  first  and  sec- 
ond resurrection,  or  should  they  not  have  done  so, 
will  remain  longer  in  punishment." 

The  Ambrosiaster  is  by  an  unknown  author,  an- 
ciently erroneously  supposed  to  be  Ambrose,  as  it 
was  bound  with  the  works  of  this  father.  On  I  Cor. 
xv:  28,  the  Ambrosiaster  says:  "This  is  implied 
in  the  Savior's  subjecting  himself  to  the  Father; 
this  is  involved  in  God's  being  all  in  all,  namely, 
when  every  creature  learns  that  Christ  is  his  head, 
and  that  God  the  Father  is  the  head  of  Christ,  then 
God  the  Father  is  all  in  all.  This  implies  that 
every  creature  thinks  one  and  the  same  thing,  so 
that  every  tongue  of  celestials,  terrestials  and  infer- 
nals  shall  confess  God  as  the  great  One  from  whom 
all  things  are  derived.  "  This  sentiment  he  avows 
in  other  passages. 

Serapion,  the  companion  of  Athanasius,  A.  D. 
346,  says  of  evil;  "It  is  of  itself  nothing,  nor  can 
it  in  itself  exist,  or  exist  always;  but  it  is  in  process 
of  vanishing,  and  by  vanishing  proved  to  be  unable 
to  exist.  "  ^ 

Macarius  Magnes,  a.  D.  370,  says  that  death 
was  ordained  at  the  first,  "in  order  that,  by  the  dis- 

"Ideo   Dives  ille  in    Evangelic,  licet  peccator,   poenalibus    torquetur 
aeruninis.ut  citicus  possit  evadere. 
•'Adv.  Man.,  Ch.  i^. 


ADDITIONAL  AUTHORITIES.  249 

solution  of  the  body,  all  the  sin  proceeding  from  the 
connection  (of  soul  and  body)  should  be  totally  de- 
stroyed. "  ^^ 

Marius  Victorinus,  a.  D.  360,  was  born  in  Af- 
rica, and  was  a  famous  rhetorician,  whose  writings 
abound  with  expressions  of  the  faith  of  Universalism. 
On  I  Cor.  XV :  28,  he  says:  "All  things  shall  be  ren- 
dered spiritual  at  the  consummation  of  the  world. 
At  the  consummation  all  things  shall  be  one.^* 
*  *  *  Therefore  all  things  converted  to  him  shall 
become  one,  i.  e.,  spiritual;  through  the  Son  all 
things  shall  be  made  one,  for  all  things  are  by  him, 
for  all  things  that  exist  are  one,  though  they  be  dif- 
ferent. For  the  body  of  the  entire  universe  is  not 
like  a  mere  heap,  which  becomes  a  body,  only  by 
the  contact  of  its  particles;  but  it  is  a  body  chiefly  in 
its  several  parts  being  closely  and  mutually  bound 
together — it  forms  a  continuous  chain.  For  the  chain 
is  this,  God:  Jesus:  the  Spirit:  the  intellect :  the  soul: 
the  angelic  host:  and  lastly,  all  subordinate  bodily 
existences."  On  Eph.  i,  iv:  "Thus  the  mystery 
was  completed  by  the  Savior  in  order  that,  perf  action 
having  been  completed  throughout  all  things,  and  in 
all  things  by  Christ,  all  universally  should  be  made 
one  through  Christ  and  in  Christ.  *  *  *  And 
because  he  (Christ)  is  the  life,  he  is  that  by  whom 
all  things  have  been  made,  and  for  whom  all  things 
have  been  made,  for  all  things  cleansed  by  him  re- 
turn into  eternal  life. " 

Hilary,  Bishop  of  Poictiers,  (died,  A.  D.  368),  is 


'■*Not.  et  Frag..xix. 

»*Adv.  Arium,  lib.  I:  25;  Migne,  viii,  p.  1059. 


250     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

said  by  Jerome  to  have  translated  nearly  40,000 
lines  of  Origen.  On  Luke  xv:  4,  he 
says:  "  This  one  sheep  (lost)  is  man, 
and  by  one  man  the  entire  race  is  to 
be  understood;  the  ninety  and  nine 
are  the  heavenly  angels  *  *  *  and  by  us  (man- 
kind) who  are  all  one,  the  number  of  the  heavenly 
church  is  to  be  filled  up.  And  therefore  it  is  that 
every  creature  awaits  the  revelation  of  the  sons  of 
God."  On  Psalm.  Ixix:  32,  ^:^:  "Even  the  abode  of 
hell  is  to  praise  God.  "  Also,  "  'As  thou  hast  given 
him  power  over  all  flesh  in  order  that  he  should  give 
eternal  life  to  all  that  thou  hast  given  him,*  *  *  * 
so  the  Father  gave  all  things,  and  the  Son  accepted 
all  things,  *  *  *  and  honored  by  the  Father 
was  to  honor  the  Father,  and  to  employ  the  power 
received  in  giving  eternity  of  life  to  all  flesh.  *  *  * 
Now  this  is  life  eternal  that  they  may  know  thee. "  ^^ 
John  Cassian,  A.  D.  390-440.  This  celebrated 
man  was  educated  in  the  monastery  in  Bethlehem, 
and  was  the  founder  of  two  monasteries  in  Marseilles. 
He  wrote  much,  and  drew  the  fire  of  Augustine, 
whose  doctrines  he  strenuously  assailed.  Neander 
declares  of  him,  that  his  views  of  the  divine  love  ex- 
tended to  all  men,  "which  wills  the  salvation  of  all, 
and  refers  everything  to  this ;  even  subordinating  the 
punishment  of  the  wicked  to  this  simple  end.  "^* 
Ueberweg  says  Cassian  "could  not  admit  that 
God  would  save  only  a  portion  of  the  human  race, 
and  that  Christ  died  only  for  the  elect. "  Hagenbach 
states   that   the   erroneous   idea  that  God    "would 

»De  Trin.  lib.  IX. 

WHist.  Christ  Ch.,  ii:  628.    Hist.  Christ.  Dogmas,  ii:  877, ' 


ADDITIONAL   AUTHORITIES.  251 

save  only  a  few  "  is  in  the  opinion  of  Cassian  ingene 
sacrilegiujfi,  a  g^eat  sacrilege  or  blasphemy.  Nean- 
DER,  in  his  "  History  of  Dogmas,"  remarks:  **  The 
practically  Christian  guided  him  in  treating  the  doc- 
trines of  faith ;  he  admitted  nothing  which  was  not 
suited  to  satisfy  thoroughly  the  religious  wants  of 
men.  *  *  *  The  idea  of  divine  justice  in  the  de- 
termination of  man's  lot  after  the  first  transgression 
did  not  preponderate  in  Cassian's  writings  as  in  Au- 
gustine's, but  the  idea  of  a  disciplinary  divine  love, 
by  the  leadings  of  which  men  are  to  be  led  to  repent- 
ance. He  appeals  also  to  the  mysteriousness  of 
God's  ways,  not  as  concerns  predestination,  but  the 
variety  of  the  leadings  by  which  God  leads  different 
individuals  to  salvation.  In  no  instance,  however, 
can  divine  grace  operate  independently  of  the  free 
self  determination  of  man;  as  the  husbandman  must 
do  his  part,  but  all  this  avails  nothing  without  the 
divine  blessing,  so  man  must  do  his  part,  yet  this 
profits  nothing  without  divine  grace.  "  To  which  T. 
B.  Thayer,  D.  D,,  adds  in  the  ''  Universalist  Quar- 
terly" :  "  It  is  a  fact  worth  noting  in  this  connection, 
that  Cassianus  went  to  Constantinople  in  A.  D.  403, 
where  he  listened  to  the  celebrated  Chrysostom,  by 
whom  he  was  ordained  as  Deacon.  Speaking  of 
Chrysostom,  Neander  says  that  but  for  the  necessity 
of  opposing  those  who  made  too  light  of  sin  and  its 
retributions  and  would  fain  reason  away  the  doctrine 
of  eternal  punishment,  '  his  mild  and  amiable  spirit 
might  not  otherwise  be  altogether  disinclined  to  the 
doctrine  of  a  universal  restoration,  with  which  he 
must  have  become  acquainted  at  an  earlier  period, 
from  being    a    disciple    of    Diodorus   of    Tarsus.* 


252     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

*  *  *  This  justifies  the  remark  of  Neander  that 
we  may  perhaps  'discern  in  these  traits  of  Cassianus 
the  spirit  of  the  great  Chrysostom,  with  whom  he 
long  lived  in  the  capacity  of  deacon,  and  whose  dis- 
ciple he  delighted  to  call  himself.'  " 

Theodoret,  the  Blessed,  was  born  A.  D.  387,  and 

died  458.      He  was  ordained   Bishop   of   Cyrus   in 

Syria,     420.      He   was    a    pupil    of 

Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,    and   was 
The  Blessed.  ,  i.    j      ^     r     1  j 

aiso  a  student  of  eloquence  and  sa- 
cred literature  of  Chrysostom.  Dr. 
ScHAFF  calls  his  continuation  of  Eusebius's  Eccle- 
siastical History  most  valuable.  Neander,  Mur- 
doch, and  Mosheim  rank  him  high  in  learning,  elo- 
quence and  goodness.  He  illustrates  one  of  the 
many  contradictions  of  the  assertions  of  merely  sec- 
tarian scholars.  Though  Dr.  Shedd  says  that  "the 
only  exception  to  the  belief  in  the  eternity  of  future 
punishment  in  the  ancient  church  appears  in  the 
Alexandrian  school,  "  yet,  Theodoret,  Theodore, 
Diodore  and  others  were  all  of  the  Antiochan 
school.  Dr.  Orello  Cone  first  called  the  attention 
of  our  church  to  this  father,  who  is  not  even  men- 
tioned by  Dr.  Ballou,  in  his  "Ancient  History  of 
Universalism,  "  and  we  quote  from  his  article,  copied 
in  part  from  "The  New  York  Christian  Ambassa- 
dor" into  "The  Universalist  Quarterly,"  April, 
i866.  Dr.  Cone  says  that  Theodoret  regarded  the 
resurrection  as  the  elevation  and  quickening  of  man's 
entire  nature.  "  He  gives  this  higher  spiritual  view 
of  the  resurrection  {anastasis)  in  his  commentary 
on  Eph.  i:  10,  'For  through  the  dispensation  or  in- 
carnation of  Christ  the  nature  of  men  axises,' anista. 


ADDITIONAL  AUTHORITIES.  253 

or  is  resurrected,  '  and  puts  on  incorruption. '  He 
does  not  say  the  bodies  of  men,  but  the  nature 
{phusis)  is  resurrected.  " 

Theodoret  says,  on  "Gathering  all  things  in 
Christ :  "  "  And  the  visible  creation  shall  be  liberated 
from  corruption,  and  shall  attain  incorruption,  and 
the  inhabitants  of  the  invisible  worlds  shall  live  in 
perpetual  joy,  for  grief  and  sadness  and  groaning 
shall  be  done  away."  *  *  *  On  the  universal 
atonement: — "Teaching  that  he  would  free  from  the 
power  of  death  not  only  his  own  body,  but  at  the 
same  time  the  entire  nature  of  the  human  race,  he 
presently  adds:  'And  I,  if  I  be  lifted  from  the 
earth  will  draw  all  men  unto  me ;  '  for  I  will  not  suf- 
fer what  I  have  undertaken  to  raise  the  body  only, 
but  I  will  fully  accomplish  the  resurrection  to  all 
men.  *  *  *  He  has  paid  the  debt  for  us,  and 
blotted  out  the  handwriting  that  was  against  us, 
*  *  *  and  having  done  these  things,  he  quick- 
ened together  with  himself  the  entire  nature  of  men.  " 

He  formed  his  Christian  system  on  Theodore's, 
and  on  that  of  Diodore  of  Tarsus,  both  Universal- 
ists.  Allin  says,  he  ' '  was  perhaps  the  most  famous, 
and  certainly  the  most  learned  teacher  of  his  age ; 
uniting  to  a  noble  intellect  a  character  and  accom- 
plishments equally  noble.  "  He  published  a  defense 
of  Diodore  and  Theodore,  unfortunately  lost.  On 
I  Cor.  XV :  28,  Theodoret  says:  "But  in  the  future 
life  corruption  ceasing  and  immortality  being  con- 
ferred, the  passions  have  no  place,  and  these  being 
removed,  no  kind  of  sin  is  committed.  So  from  that 
time  God  is  all  in  all,  when  all,  freed  from  sin,  and 
turned  to  him,  shall  have  no  inclination  to  evil.  "    On 


254    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Eph.  i:  23,  he  says:  "  In  the  present  life  God  is  in 
all,  for  his  nature  is  without  limits,  but  is  not  all  in 
all.  But  in  the  coming  life,  when  mortality  is  at  an 
end  and  immortality  granted,  and  sin  has  no  longer 
any  place,  God  will  be  all  in  all.  ^^  For  the  Lord, 
who  loves  man,  punishes  medicinally,  that  he  may 
check  the  course  of  impiety." 

Gregory  the  Great  says  that  the  Roman  church 
refused  to  acknowledge  Theodoret's  History  because 

he  praised  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia, 
Works  of  and  insisted  that  he  was  a  great  doc- 

Theodoret.  tor  in  the  church.     Theodoret  says 

that  Theodore  was  ''the  teacher  of 
all  the  churches,  and  the  opponent  of  all  the  sects  of 
heresy,  "  so  that  in  his  opinion  Universalism  was  not 
heretical. 

EvAGRius  PoNTicus,  A.  D.  390.      The  works  of 
this  eminent   saint  and  scholar  were   destroyed  by 

the  Fifth  General  Council  that  con- 

.     „    ,.         demned  him — though  not  as  a  Uni- 
Evagrius  Ponticus.  % 

versahst — a  hundred  and  fifty  years 

after  his  death.  The  council  anathe- 
matized him  with  Didymus.  It  is  most  apparent 
that  the  great  multitude  of  Christians  must  have  ac- 
cepted views  which  were  so  generally  advocated  and 
unchallenged  during  those  early  years,  by  the  best 
and  greatest  of  the  fathers.  Evagrius  is  said  by 
Jerome  in  his  epistle  to  Ctesiphon  against  the  Pela- 
gians, to  have  been  an  Origenist.  He  wrote  three 
books,  the  "  Saint"  or  "Gnostic,"  the  "Monk. "and 
the  "Refutation." 

"Migne,  Ixxxii,  p.  360. 


ADDITIONAL  AUTHORITIES.  255 

Cyril  of  Alexandria  (A.  D.  412)  says:  "Trav- 
ersing the  lowest  recesses  of  the  infernal  regions, 
after  that  he  (Christ)  had  preached  to  the  spirits 
there,  he  led  forth  the  captives  in  his  strength."  ^^ 
"  Now  when  sin  has  been  destroyed,  how  should  it 
be  but  that  death  too,  should  wholly  perish?"  *  *  * 
' '  Through  Christ  has  been  saved  the  holy  multitude 
of  the  fathers,  nay,  the  whole  human  race  altogether, 
which  was  earlier  in  time  (than  Christ's  death)  for 
he  died  for  all,  and  the  death  of  all  was  done  away 
in  him. "  ^^ 

RuFiNus,  A.  D.  345-410,  wrote  an  elaborate  de- 
fense of  Origen,  and  in  the  preface  to  "  De  Princi- 
piis"  he  declares  that  he  excised  from  that  work  of 
Origen  all  that  was  "  discordant  with  our  (the  ac- 
cepted Christian)  belief."  As  the  work  still  abounds 
in  expressions  of  Universalism,  not  only  his  sympa- 
thy with  that  belief,  but  also  the  fact  that  it  was  then 
the  prevailing  Christian  belief  can  not  be  questioned. 
HuET  says  that  he  taught  the  temporary  duration  of 
punishment.  ^ 

Dr.  Ballou  quotes  Domitian,  Bishop  of  Galatia, 
as  probably  a  Universalist  (A.  D.  546),  who  is  re- 
ported by  Facundus  to  have  written  a  book  in  which 
he  declares  that  those  who  condemned  Origen  have 
"condemned  all  the  saints  who  were  before  him,  and 
who  have  been  after  him."  ^^ 

DiODORE,  Bishop  of  Tarsus,  from  A.  D.  378  to 
394,  was  of  the  Antiochan  or  Syrian  school.  He  op- 
posed Origen  on  some  subjects,  but  agreed  with  his 

'SHomilia.  Pasch.  xx.    Migne,  Ixxvii. 
"Glaph.  inEx.,  lib.  II. 
sfOrigen.  II,  p.  160. 
aiAnc.  Hist.  Univ.,  p.  265. 


256    -UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Universalism.      He  says:   "  For  the  wicked  there  are 

punishments,    not    perpetual,    how- 

^.    ,         ,  ^  ever,   lest  the  immortality  prepared 

Diodore  of  Tarsus.  '  ,       , .  , .      , 

for  them  should  be  a  disadvantage, 

but  they  are  to  be  punished  for  a 
brief  period  according  to  the  amount  of  malice  in 
their  works.  They  shall  therefore  suffer  punishment 
for  a  short  space,  but  immortal  blessedness  having 
no  end  awaits  them  *  *  *  the  penalties  to  be  in- 
flicted for  their  many  and  grave  sins  are  very  far  sur- 
passed by  the  magnitude  of  the  mercy  to  be  showed 
them.  The  resurrection,  therefore,  is  regarded  as  a 
blessing  not  only  to  the  good,  but  also  to  the  evil. "  ^ 
The  same  authority  affirms  that  many  Nestorian 
bishops  taught  the  same  doctrine.  The  ' '  Diction- 
ary of  Christian  Biography"  observes:  **  Dio- 
dorus  of  Tarsus  taught  that  the  penalty  of  sin 
is  not  perpetual,  but  issues  in  the  blessedness  of 
immortality,  and  (he)  was  followed  by  Stephanus, 
Bishop  of  Edessa,  and  Salomo  of  Bassora,  and 
Isaac  of  Nineveh."  "  Even  those  who  are  tortured 
in  Gehenna  are  under  the  discipline  of  the  divine 
charity. "  "  And  they  were  followed  in  their  turn  by 
Georgius  of  Arbela,  and  Ebed  Jesu  of  Soba. "  Dio- 
dore contended  that  God's  mercy  would  punish  the 
wicked  less  than  their  sins  deserved,  inasmuch  as  his 
mercy  gave  the  good  more  than  they  deserved.  He 
denied  that  Deity  would  bestow  immortality  for  the 
purpose  of  prolonging  and  perpetuating  suffering. 
Diodore  and  Theodore,  the  first,  Chrysostom's 
teacher,   and   the   second   his   fellow-student,    were 

22Asseir.aQi  Bib.  Orieatalis,  III,  p.  824. 


ADDITIONAL  AUTHORITIES.  257 

really  the  pioneers  in  teaching  Scripture  by  help  of 
history,  criticism  and  philology. '^^  They  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  forerunners  of  modern  interpretation. 
Like  so  many  others  of  the  ancient  writings  Diodore's 
works  have  perished,  and  we  have  only  a  few  quota- 
tions from  them,  contained  in  the  works  of  others. 
But  we  have  enough  to  qualify  him  to  occupy  an 
honorable  place  among  the  Universalists  of  the 
Fourth  Century. 

Even  Dr.  Pusey  is  compelled  to  admit  the  Uni- 
versalism  of  Diodore  of  Tarsus,  and  Theodore  of 
Mopsuestia.  He  says,  quoting  from  Salomo  of  Bas- 
sora,  i2  22,some  eight  hundred  years  after  their  death: 
"The  two  writers  use  different  arguments  and  have 
different  theories.  Theodoras  rests  his  on  Holy 
Scripture,  '  until  thou  hast  paid  the  uttermost  far- 
thing,'  and  'the  many  and  few  stripes,'  and  at- 
tributes the  amendment  of  those  who  have  done 
ill  all  their  lives  to  the  discovery  of  their  mistake. 
Diodorus  says  that  punishment  must  not  be  per- 
petual, lest  the  immortality  prepared  for  them  be 
useless  to  them ;  he  twice  repeats  that  punishment, 
though  varied  according  to  their  deserts,  would  be 
for  a  short  time.  His  ground  was  his  conviction 
that  since  God's  rewards  so  far  exceed  the  deserts 
of  the  good,  the  like  mercy  would  be  shown  to  the 
evil."  24 

Though  somewhat  later  than  the  projected  limits 
of  this  work,  two  or  three  authors  may  be  named. 

Macarius  is  said  by  Evagrius  to  have  been 
ejected  from  his  see,  A.  D.  552,  for  maintaining  the 

^Robertson's  Hist.  Christ.  Ch.,  I,  p.  455. 
anVhat  is  of  Faith,  p.  231. 


258     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

opinions  of  Origen.     Whether  universal  restitution 
was  among  them  is  uncertain. 

Peter  Chrysologus,  A.  D.     433,    Bishop  of  Ra- 
venna, in  a  sermon  on    the  Good  Shepherd,    says 
the     lost     sheep     represents     "the 

^,        ,  whole  human  race   lost  in  Adam, " 

Chr>sologus.  ' 

and  that  Christ  "followed  the  one, 
seeks  the  one,  in  order  that  in  the 
one  he  may  restore  all.  " 

Stephan  Bar-sudaili,  Abbot  of  Edessa,  in  Meso- 
potamia, at  the  end  of  the  Fifth  Century,  taught  Uni- 
versalism, — the  termination  of  all  punishments  in 
the  future  world,  and  their  purifying  character.  The 
fallen  angels  are  to  receive  mercy,  and  all  things  are 
to  be  restored,  so  that  God  may  be  all  in  all.  ^s  He 
was  at  the  head  of  a  monastery.  Attacked  as  a  her- 
etic he  left  Edessa  and  repaired  to  Palestine,  which 
in  those  days  seems  to  have  been  the  refuge  of 
those  who  desired  freedom  of  opinion.  How  many 
might  have  sympathized  with  him  in  Mesopotamia 
or  in  Palestine  cannot  be  known. 

Maximus,  the  Confessor.  As  late  as  the  Seventh 

Century,  in  spite  of  the  power  of  Roman  tyranny 

and  Pagan  error,  the  truth  survived. 

«<•    •         r-or.  /r/r.,    Maximus — A.    D.    =; 80-662 — was  sec- 
Maximus.  580-662  ^ 

retary  of  the  Emperor  Heraclius, 
and  confidential  friend  of  Pope  Mar- 
tin I.  He  opposed  the  Emperor  Constans  II,  in  his 
attempts  to  control  the  religious  convictions  of  his 
subjects,  and  was  banished,  A.  D.  653,  and  died  of 
ill  treatment.  He  was  both  scholar  and  saint. 
Neander  says: 

•^Assemani  Bibl,  Orient.,  II,  p. 291. 


ADDITIONAL  AUTHORITIES.  259 

"The  fundamental  ideas  of  Maximus  seem  to 
lead  to  the  doctrine  of  a  final  imiversal  restoration, 
which  in  fact  is  intimately  connected  also  with  the 
system  of  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  to  which  he  most 
closely  adhered.  Yet  he  was  too  much  fettered  by 
the  church  system  of  doctrine  distinctly  to  express 
anything  of  the  sort.  "  Neander  adds,  that  in  his 
aphorisms  "  the  reunion  of  all  rational  essences  with 
God  is  established  as  the  final  end."  "Him  who 
wholly  unites  all  things  in  the  end  of  the  ages,  or 
in  eternity.  "  Ueberweg  states  that  "Maximus 
taught  that  God  had  revealed  himself  through  nature 
and  by  his  Word.  The  incarnation  of  God  in  Christ 
was  the  culmination  of  revelation,  and  would  there- 
fore have  taken  place  even  if  man  had  not  fallen. 
The  Universe  will  end  in  the  union  of  all  things 
with  God. " 


XIX. 

THE  DETERIORATION    OF   CHRISTIAN 
THOUGHT. 

The  great  transition  from  the  Christianity  of  the 
Apostles  to  the  pseudo-Christianity  of  the  patriarchs 
and  emperors — the  transformation 
Transition  of  of  Christianity  to  Churchianity — may 

Christianity.  be  said    to  have  begun  with    Con- 

STANTiNE,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Fourth  Century.  Its  relations  to  the  temporal 
power  experienced  an  entire  change.  Heathenism 
surrendered  to  it.  As  the  stones  of  the  heathen 
temples  were  rebuilt  into  Christian  churches,  so  the 
Pagan  principles  held  by  the  masses  modified  and 
corrupted  the  religion  of  Christ ;  while  the  worldli- 
ness  of  secular  interests  derived  from  the  union  of 
church  and  state,  exerted  a  debasing  influence,  and 
the  Christianity  of  the  Catacombs  and  of  Origen  be- 
came the  church  of  the  popes,  of  the  Inquisition,  and 
of  the  Middle  Ages. 

"The  writers  of  the  Fourth  Century  generally 
contradict  those  of  the  Second,  who  were  in  part  wit- 
nesses, or  reported  credible  evidence  and  plausible 
traditions,  whereas  those  later  fathers  were  only 
critics,  and  most  of  them  very  indifferent  and  biased 
ones.  For  they  often  proceed  from  systems,  histor- 
ical and  doctrinal,  which  strongly  impair  their  quali- 
fications for  being  judges. "     There  seems  an  entire 

260 


DETERIORATION  OF  CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT.    261 

change  in  the  church  after  the  Nicene  Council. 
"The  Anti-Nicene  age  was  the  World  against  the 
Church;  the  Post-Nicene  age  is  the  history  of  the 
World  in  the  Church.  As  an  antagonist  the  World 
was  powerless;  as  an  ally  it  became  dangerous  and 
its  influence  disastrous. "  ^ 

"From  the  time  of  Constantine, "  says  Schaff, 
"  church  discipline  declines;  the  whole  Roman  world 
having  become  nominally  Christian,  and  the  host  of 
hypocritical  professors  multiplying  beyond  all  con- 
trol." It  was  during  Constantine's  reign  that, 
among  other  foreign  corruptions,  monasticism  came 
into  Christianity,  from  the  Hindoo  religions  and  other 
sources,  and  gave  rise  to  those  ascetic  organizations 
so  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the  author  of  our  religion, 
and  so  productive  of  error  and  evil.  Perhaps  the  de- 
terioration of  Christian  doctrine  and  life  may  be 
dated  from  the  edict  of  Milan  (A.  D.  313),  when 
"  unhappily,  the  church  also  entered  on  an  altogether 
new  career— that  of  patronage  and  state  protection. 
That  which  it  was  about  to  gain  in  material  power 
it  would  lose  in  moral  force  and  independence."  It 
is  probable  that  the  beginning  of  the  conventual  life 
of  women  from  which  grew  the  nunneries  and  con- 
vents that  covered  Christendom  in  the  succeeding 
centuries,  was  with  Helen,  the  mother  of  the  Em- 
peror Constantine,  who  A.  D.  331  closed  a  pious 
life  at  the  age  of  eighty  years.  She  was  accustomed 
to  gather  the  virgins  of  the  church  to  repasts,  serv- 
ing them  with  her  own  hands  at  table  and  praying  in 
their  company. 

Robertson   says:     "  Theophilus  succeeded  Tim- 

'Hipp.  and  his  Age. 


262    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

othy  at  Alexandria  A.  D.  385,  and  held  the  see  till 
412.  He  was  able,  bold,  crafty,  unscrupulous,  cor- 
rupt, rapacious,  domineering.  In  the  first  contro- 
versy between  Jerome  and  Rufinus  he  had  acted  the 
creditable  part  of  a  mediator.  His  own  inclinations 
were  undoubtedly  in  favor  of  Origen;  he  had  even 
deposed  a  bishop  named  Paul  for  his  hostility  to  that 
teacher,  but  he  now  found  it  expedient  to  adopt  a 
different  line  of  conduct. "  Jerome  and  Theophilus 
subsequently  joined  hands  and  united  in  a  bitter  and 
relentless  warfare  against  the  great  Alexandrian. 
There  seems  to  have  been  very  little  principle  in  the 
course  they  pursued. 

Jerome — A.  D.  331-420 — was  one  of  the  ablest  of 

the  fathers  of  the  century  in  which  he  lived — "  the 

most  learned  except  Origen,"  up  to 

his  time.  He  wrote  in  Latin,  and 
Jerome— 331-420.  .  ,      ;, 

was  contemporary  with  Augustine, 

but  did  not  accept  all  the  Paganism 
of  the  great  corruptor  of  Christianity.  He  stood  in 
line  with  his  Oriental  predecessors.  At  first  he  was 
an  enthusiastic  partisan  of  Origen,  but  later,  when 
opposition  to  the  great  Alexandrian  set  in,  he  be- 
came an  equally  violent  opponent.  Schaff  says  he 
was  a  great  trimmer  and  time  server,  and  at  length 
seemed  to  acquiesce  in  the  growing  influence  of  Au- 
gustinianism.  Jerome  had  ''originally  belonged, 
like  the  friend  of  his  youth,  Rufinus,  and  John, 
Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  to  the  warmest  admirers  of  the 
great  Alexandrian  father.  ^  But  attacked  as  he  now 
was,  with  remonstrances  from  different  sides,  he  be- 

2Canon  Freemantle  in  Diet.  Christ.  Biog.  Vol.  III.,  1  Art.   Hieronymus. 


DETERIORATION  OF  CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT.     263 

gan  out  of  anxiety  for  his  own  reputation  for  ortho- 
doxy, to  separate  himself  with  the  utmost  care  from 
the  heresies  with  which  he  was  charged."  One  of 
Origen's  works,  in  the  handwriting  of  Pamphilus, 
came  into  Jerome's  possession,  who  says,  owning  it, 
he  "owns  the  wealth  of  Croesus;  it  is  signed,  as  it 
were,  with  the  very  blood  of  the  martyr. " 

Jerome  translated  fourteen  homilies  of  Origen  on 
Jeremiah,  and  fourteen  on  Ezekiel,  and  quotes 
DiDYMUs  as  saying  that  Origen  was  the  greatest 
teacher  of  the  church  since  St.  Paul.  During  his 
residence  in  Rome  Jerome  highly  praised  Origen, 
but  soon  after,  when  he  found  himself  accused  of 
heresy  for  so  doing,  he  declared  that  he  had  only 
read  him  as  he  had  lead  other  heretics.  In  a  letter 
to  ViGiLANTius  he  says:  "  I  praise  him  as  an  inter- 
preter, not  as  a  dogmatic  teacher;  for  his  genius,  not 
for  his  faith;  as  a  philosopher,  not  as  an  apostle.  * 
*  *  If  you  believe  me,  I  never  was  an  Origenist; 
if  you  do  not  believe  me,  I  have  now  ceased  to  be 
one. "3  But  when  in  Csesarea  he  borrowed  the  manu- 
script of  Origen's  Hexapla  and  collated  it,  and  in 
Alexandria  he  passed  a  month  with  the  great  Uni- 
versalist,  the  blind  Didymus. 

It  is  curious  to  notice,  however,  that  Jerome  does 
not  oppose  Origen's  universal  restoration,  but  erro- 
neously accuses  him  of  advocating  the  universal 
equality  of  the  restored — of  holding  that  Gabriel 
and  the  devil,  Paul  and  Caiaphas,  the  virgin  and  the 
prostitute,  will  be  alike  in  the  immortal  world.  The 
idea  of  the  universal  restoration  of  mankind,  divested 

'Epist.  xxxiii.  Migne  Vol.  XXII. 


264    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

of  pre-existence,  universal  equality,  the  salvability 
of  evil  spirits,  etc.,  does  not  seem  to  have  been  much 
objected  to  in  the  days  of  Jerome,  even  by  those 
who  did  not  accept  it. 

Jerome's  later  language  is:  "  And  though  Origen 
declares  that  no  rational  being  will  be  lost,  and  gives 
penitence  to  the  evil  one,  what  is 
Jerome's  Politic  that  to  us  who  believe  that  the  evil 
Course.  one  and  his  satellites,    and  all    the 

wicked  will  perish  eternally,  and  that 
Christians,  if  they  have  been  cut  off  in  sin,  shall  after 
punishment  be  saved.''  This,  however,  was  after  the 
cautious  and  politic  churchman  had  begun  to  hedge 
in  order  to  conciliate  the  growing  influence  of  Augus- 
tinianism.  And  the  words  italicised  above  show  that 
his  endless  punishment  was  very  elastic. 

Jerome  uses  the  word  rendered  eternal  in  the 
Bible  {aionios)  in  the  sense  of  limited  duration,  as 
that  Jerusalem  was  burnt  with  aionian  fire  by  Ha- 
drian; that  Israel  experienced  aionian  woe,  etc.  In 
his  commentary  on  Isaiah  his  language  is: 

"Those  who  think  that  the  punishment  of  the 
wicked  will  one  day,  after  many  ages,  have  an  end, 
rely  on  these  testimonies:  Rom.  xi.  25;  Gal.  iii. 
22;  Mic.  vii.  9;  Isa.  xii.  i;  Ps.  xxx.  20,"  which  he 
quotes,  and  adds:  "And  this  we  ought  to  leave  to 
the  knowledge  of  God  alone,  whose  torments,  no  less 
than  his  compassion,  are  in  due  measure,  and  who 
knows  how  and  how  long  to  punish.  This  only  let 
us  say  as  suiting  our  human  frailty,  *  Lord,  rebuke 
me  not  in  thy  fury,  nor  chasten  me  in  thine  anger. '  "* 

*Plumptre,  Diet.  Christ  Biog.  II,  Art.  "  Eschatology." 


DETERIORATION  OF  CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT.    265 

Commenting-  on  Isaiah  xxiv,  he  says:  "This  seems 
to  favor  those  friends  of  mine  who  grant  the  g^race  of 
repentance  to  the  devil  and  to  demons  after  many- 
ages,  that  they  too  shall  be  visited  after  a  time.  *  *  * 
Human  frailty  cannot  kno-w  the  judgment  of  God, 
nor  venture  to  form  an  opinion  of  the  greatness  and 
the  measure  of  his  punishment. "  Jerome  frequently 
exposes  his  sympathy  -with  the  doctrine  of  restora- 
tion, as  when  he  says:  "  Israel  and  all  heretics,  be- 
cause they  had  the  works  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah, 
are  overthrown  like  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  that  they 
may  be  set  free  like  a  brand  snatched  from  the  burn- 
ing. And  this  is  the  meaning  of  the  prophet's  words, 

*  Sodom  shall  be  restored  as  of  old, '  that  he  who  by 
his  vice  is  as  an  inhabitant  of  Sodom,  after  the  works 
of  Sodom  have  been  burnt  in  him,  may  be  restored  to 
his  ancient  state.  "  ^ 

In  quoting  from  this  father,  Allin  says,  in  Uni- 
versalism  Asserted:  "  Nor  are  these  isolated  in- 
stances ;  I  have  found  nearly  one  hundred  passages 
in  his  works  (and  there  are  doubtless  others)  indi- 
cating Jerome's  sympathy  with  Universalism.  Fur- 
ther, we  should  note  that  when  towards  the  year 
400  A.  D.,  Jerome  took  part  with  Epiphanius  and  the 
disreputable  Theophilus  against  Origen  (whom  he  had 
hitherto  extravagantly  praised),  he,  as  Huet  points 
out,  kept  a  significant  silence  on  the  question  of  hu- 
man restoration.      '  Though  you  adduce, '  says  Huet, 

*  six  hundred  testimonies,  you  thereby  only  prove 
that  he  changed  his  opinion. '  But  did  he  ever  change 
his  opinion?  And  if  so,  how  far?    Thus  in  his  '  Epis. 

"Com.  on  Amos. 


266     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

ad  Avit. ,'  where  he  goes  at  length  into  Origen's 
errors,  he  says  nothing  of  the  larger  hope ;  and  when 
charged  with  Origenism  he  refers  time  over  to  his 
commentaries  on  Ephesians,  which  teach  the  most 
outspoken  Universalism.  As  a  specimen  of  his 
praise  of  Origen,  he  says,  in  a  letter  to  Paula  that 
Origen  was  blamed,  '  not  on  account  of  the  novelty  of 
his  doctrines,  not  on  account  of  heresy,  as  now  mad 
dogs  pretend,  but  from  jealousy,'  so  that  to  call  Ori- 
gen a  heretic  is  the  part  of  a  mad  dog!  Note  this, 
from  the  most  orthodox  Jerome," 

Translating  Origen's    "  Homilies, "  which  affirm 
Universalism  continually,  he  said  in  his  preface,  that 
Origen  was  only  inferior  to  the  Apos- 
A  M'      bi    St        ^^^^ — "alterum  post    apostolum    ec- 
clesiarum   magistrum. "     The    man- 
ner   in    which    he    retracted    these 
sentiments,  and  became  the  detractor  and  enemy  of 
the  man  to  whom  he  had  admitted  his  indebtedness 
is  disgraceful  to  his  memory.      Farrar  accurately 
calls  the  record  of  his  behavior  "  a  miserable  story. " 
Jerome's  morbid  dread  of  being  held  to  be  heretical, 
led  him,  it  is  feared,  to  deny  some  of  his  real  opin- 
ions, and  to  violently  attack  those  who  held  them, 
in  order  to  divert  attention  from  himself.^ 

A  few  of  his  expressions  are  here  given  out  of  the 
many  quotable.  On  Eph.  iv;  i6:  "In  the  end  of 
things,  the  whole  body  which  had  been  dissipated 
and  torn  into  divers  parts  shall  be  restored.  Let  us 
understand  the  whole  number  of  rational  creatures 
under  the  figure  of  a  single  rational  animal.    Let  us 

•He  calls  Origen  "that  immortal  intellect." 


DETERIORATION  OF  CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT.    267 

imagine  this  animal  to  be  torn  so  that  no  bone  ad- 
heres to  bone,  nor  nerve  to  nerve.  *  *  *  in  the 
restitution  of  all  things  when  Christ  the  true  physi- 
cian shall  have  come  to  heal  the  body  of  the  univer- 
sal church  *  *  *  every  one  *  *  *  shall  re- 
ceive his  proper  place.  *  *  *  What  I  mean  is, 
the  fallen  angel  will  begin  to  be  that  which  he  was 
created,  and  man  who  has  been  expelled  from  Para- 
dise will  be  once  more  restored  to  the  tilling  of  Para- 
dise. *  *  *  These  things  then  will  take  place  uni- 
versally."* *  *  On  Mic.  v:8:  "Death  shall  come 
as  a  visitor  to  the  impious ;  it  will  not  be  perpetual 
it  will  not  annihilate  them;  but  will  prolong  its  visit 
till  the  impiety  which  is  in  them  shall  be  consumed. " 
*  *  *  On  Eph.  iv:  13,  he  says:  "The  question 
should  arise  who  those  are  of  whom  he  says  that  they 
all  shall  come  into  the  unity  of  the  faith?  Does  he 
mean  all  men,  or  all  the  saints,  or  all  rational  beings? 
He  appears  to  me  to  be  speaking  of  all  men."  On 
Johnxvii:  21:  "In  the  end  and  consummation  of 
the  Universe  all  are  to  be  restored  into  their  original 
harmonious  state,  and  we  all  shall  be  made  one  body 
and  be  imited  once  more  into  a  perfect  man,  and  the 
prayer  of  our  Savior  shall  be  fulfilled  that  all 
may  be  one. "  In  his  homily  on  Jonah  he  says: 
"Most  persons  {pleriqice,  very  many),  regard  the 
story  of  Jonah  as  teaching  the  ultimate  forgiveness 
of  all  rational  creatures,  even  the  devil. "  This  shows 
us  the  prevalence  of  the  doctrine  in  the  Fourth  Cen- 
tury. His  words  are:  "The  apostate  angels,  and 
the  prince  of  this  world,  and  Lucifer,  the  morning 
star,  though  now  ungovernable,  licentiously  wander- 
ing about,  and  plunging  themselves  into  the  depths 


268     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

of  sin.  shall  in  the  end,  embrace  the  happy  dominion 
of  Christ  and  his  saints. "  Gieseler  quotes  the  fol- 
lowing sentence  from  Jerome's  comments  on  Gal. 
v:  22:  " No  rational  creature  before  God  will  per- 
ish forever,"  and  from  this  language  the  historian 
not  only  classes  Jerome  as  a  Universalist,  but  con- 
siders it  proof  that  the  doctrine  was  then  prevalent 
in  the  West.  "  The  learned,  the  famous  Jerome 
(A.  D.  3S0-390),  was  at  this  time  a  Universalist  of 
Origen's  school.  He  was,  indeed,  a  Latin  writer; 
but  it  may- be  more  proper  to  introduce  him  with  the 
Greek  fathers,  since  he  completed  his  theological  ed- 
ucation in  the  East,  and  there  spent  the  larger  part 
of  his  manhood  and  old  age.  A  follower  of  Origen, 
from  whose  works  he  borrowed  without  reserve,  he 
nevertheless  modified  his  scheme  of  universal  sal- 
vation with  little  amendment.  *  *  At  a  later  period 
he  was  led,  by  a  theological  and  personal  quarrel, 
to  take  sides  against  this  doctrine."  ^ 

John  Chrysostom,  A.  D.  347-407,  was  born  of 
Christian  parentage  in  Antioch,  and  became  the 
golden-mouthed  orator  and  one  of  the  most  cele- 
brated of  the  fathers.  He  was  the  intimate  friend 
of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  and  Diodore  of  Tarsus, 
and  a  pupil  of  the  latter  for  six  years.  He  was  no 
controversialist,  his  works  are  chiefly  expository  and 
hortatory.  His  praise  of  his  Universalist  friends, 
Theodore  and  Diodore,  should  predispose  us  to  re- 
gard him  as  cherishing  their  view  of  human  destiny, 
notwithstanding  his  lurid  descriptions  of  the  horrors 
of  future  torments. 

'Univ.  Quar.  May,  1838. 


DETERIORATION  OF  CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT.    269 

In  answer  to  the  question,  "Whether  hell  fire 
have  any  end, "  Chrysostom  says,  "Christ  declares 

that  it  hath  no  end.  Well,"  he  adds, 
Chrysostom's  ' '  I  know  that  a  chill  comes  over  you 

^'^^^-  on  hearing  these  things,  but  what  am 

I  to  do?  For  this  is  God's  own  com- 
mand, *  *  *  that  it  hath  no  end  Christ  hath  de- 
clared. Paul  also  saith,  in  pointing  out  the  eternity 
of  punishment,  that  the  sinner  shall  pa)^  the  penalty 
of  destruction,  and  that  forever.  "^  The  reasonable- 
ness of  the  apparently  disproportioned  penalty  he 
feebly  argues.  A  specimen  of  the  utter  inadequacy 
of  his  argument  is  seen  where  he  comments  on  the 
language,  "If  any  man's  work  be  burned  he  shall 
suffer  loss,  but  he  himself  shall  be  saved,  yet  so  as 
by  fire."  He  says  it  means  "  that  while  the  sinner's 
works  shall  perish,  he  shall  be  preserved  in  fire  for 
the  purpose  of  torment."  And  he  gives  the  very 
details:  "A  river  of  fire,  and  a  poisonous  worm, 
and  darkness  interminable,  and  undying  tortures"^ 
And  yet  he  asks  with  a  significant  emphasis  that 
seems  to  preclude  the  thought  of  the  sinner's  irreme- 
diably suffering :  ' '  Tell  me  on  what  account  do  you 
mourn  for  him  that  is  departed?  Is  it  because  he 
was  wicked?  But  for  that  very  reason  you  ought  to 
give  thanks,  because  his  evil  works  are  put  a  stop  to. " 
"  God  is  equally  to  be  praised  when  he  chastises,  and 
when  he  frees  from  chastisement.  For  both  spring 
from  goodness.  *  *  *  It  is  right,  then,  to  praise 
him  equally  both  for  placing  Adam  in  Paradise,  and 
for  expelling  him ;  and  to  give  thanks  not  alone  for 

8Hom.  IX  on  I  Cor.  iii:  12-16. 
9Hom.  XI  on  I  Cor.  iv:  3. 


270    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

the  kingdom,  but  for  Gehenna  as .  well.  *  *  * 
Christ  went  to  the  utterly  black  and  joyless  portion 
of  Hades,  and  turned  it  into  heaven,  transferring  all 
its  wealth,  the  race  of  man,  into  his  royal  treasury.  "^*^ 

Dr.    Schaff   informs  us    that  "  Nitzsch   includes 

Gregory  Nazianzen  and  possibly  Chrysostom  among 

Universalists,  and  says  that  Chrysos- 

Neander  and  tom  praised    Origen  and    Diodorus, 

Schaff.  Qj^^  ^jjg^^  j^^g  comments  on  I.  Cor.  xv. 

28,  looked  toward  an  apokalastasis." 

Dr.  Beecher  ranks  him  among  the  "  esoteric 
believers."  Neander  thinks  he  believed  in  UniveT- 
salism,  but  felt  that  the  opposite  doctrine  was  nec- 
essary to  alarm  the  multitude.  On  the  words,  "  At 
the  name  of  Jesus  every  knee  shall  bow,"  Chrysos- 
tom says:  "What  does  this  mean  of  'things  in 
heaven,  on  earth,  and  under  the  earth?'  It  means 
the  whole  world,  and  angels,  and  men,  and  demons. 
Or,  it  signifies  both  the  holy  and  sinners. "  A  pupil 
of  DiODORE,  of  Tarsus,  for  six  years,  and  a  fellow- 
student  with  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  both  Univer- 
salists, he  cannot  be  regarded  as  otherwise  than  in 
sympathy  with  them  on  this  theme  of  themes.  He 
must  have  been  one  of  those  esoteric  believers  else- 
where described,  for  he  says  according  to  Neander, 
that  he  had  found  the  doctrine  of  endless  punishment 
necessary  to  the  welfare  of  sinners,  and  on  that  ac- 
count had  preached  it.  The  influence  of  the  Alex- 
andrians was  waning,  and  the  heathen  environment 
was  leavening  Christianity,  which  soon  assumed  a 
phase  wholly  foreign  to  its  primal  purity. 

loSermon  xx.xiv;  on  Ps.  cxlviii;  Ser.  xxx. 


XX. 

AUGUSTINE— DETERIORATION 
CONTINUED. 
AuRELius  AuGUSTiNUS  WES  bom  in  Tagaste, 
Numidia,  November  13,  354,  and  died  in  420.  He 
was  the  great  fountain  ot  error  destined  to  adulter- 
ate Christianity,  and  change  its  character  for  long 
ages.  In  disposition  and  spirit  he  was  wholly  un- 
like the  amiable  and  learned  fathers  who  proclaimed 
an  earlier  and  purer  faith.  He  fully  developed  that 
change  in  opinion  which  was  destined  to  influence 
Christianity  for  many  centuries.  He  himself  informs 
us  that  he  spent  his  youth  in  the  brothels  of  Carthage 
after  a  mean,  thieving  boyhood.  ^  He  cast  off  the 
mother  of  his  illegitimate  son,  Adeodatus,  whom 
he  ought  to  have  married,  as  his  sainted  mother, 
Monica,  urged  him  to  do.  It  is  an  interesting 
indication  of  the  Latin  type  of  piety  to  know  that  his 
mother  allowed  him  to  live  at  home  during  his 
shameless  life,  but  that  when  he  adopted  the  Man- 
ichaean  heresy  she  forbade  him  her  house.  And 
afterward,  when  he  became  "orthodox,"  though  still 
living  immorally,  she  received  him  in  her  home.  His 
life  was  destitute  of  the  claims  of  that  paternal  rela- 
tion on  which  society  rests,  and  which  our  Lord 
makes  the  fundamental  fact  of  his  religion,  Father- 
hood.    He  transferred  to  God  the  characteristics  of 

^Confessions,  III,  Chap,  i-iii. 

271 


272    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

semi- Pagan  kings,  and  his  theology  was  a  hybrid  born 
of  the  Roman  Code  of  Law  and  Pagan  Mythology. 

The  contrast  between  Origen's  system  and  Au- 
gustine's is  as  that  of  light  and  darkness;  with  the 

first,  Fatherhood,  Love,  Hope,  Joy, 
Augustine  and  Or-  Salvation ;  with  the  other,  Ven- 
igen  Contrasted.       geance.     Punishment,    Sin,    Eternal 

Despair.  With  Origen  God  tri- 
umphs in  final  unity ;  with  Augustine  man  contin- 
ues in  endless  rebellion,  and  God  is  defeated,  and  an 
eternal  dualism  prevails.  And  the  effect  on  the  be- 
liever was  in  the  one  case  a  pitying  love  and  charity 
that  gave  the  melting  heart  that  could  not  bear  to 
think  of  even  the  devil  unsaved,  and  that  antedated 
the  poet's  prayer, — 

"  Oh,  wad  ye  tak  a  thought  and  mend," 
and  that  believed  the  prayer  would  be  answered; 
and  in  the  other  a  stony-hearted  indifference  to  the 
misery  of  mankind,   which  he  called  "  one  damned 
batch  and  mass  of  perdition.  "  ^ 

Augustine  brought  his  theology  with  him  from 
Manichaeism  when  he  became  a  Christian,  only  he 

added  perpetuity  to  the  dualism  that 
Augustine's  Mani  made  temporal.  "  The  doctrine 

Acknowledgment,     of  endless  punishment  assumed  in  the 

writings  of  Augustine  a  prominence 
and  rigidity  which  had  no  parallel  in  the  earlier  his- 
tory of  theology  *  *  *  and  which  savors  of  the 
teaching  of  Mohammed  more  than  of  Christ.^  Hith- 
erto, even  in  the  West,  it  had  been  an  open  question 
whether  the  punishment  hereafter  of  sin  unrepented 

«Conspersio  damnata,  massa  perditionis. 
sAUen,  Cont.  Christ.  Thought. 


AUGUSTINE— DETERIORATION  CONTINUED.    273 

of  and  not  forsaken  was  to  be  endless.  Augustine 
has  left  on  record  the  fact  that  some,  indeed  very- 
many,  still  fell  back  upon  the  mercy  and  love  of  God 
as  a  ground  of  hope  for  the  ultimate  restoration  of 
humanity  *  *  *  *  he  is  the  first  writer  to  under- 
take a  long  and  elaborate  defense  of  the  doctrine  of 
endless  punishment,  and  to  wage  a  polemic  against 
its  impugners.  *  *  *  j-je  rallies  the  'tender- 
hearted Christians, '  as  he  calls  them,  who  cannot 
accept  it."  About  420  he  speaks  of  his  "merciful 
brethren,"^  or  party  of  pity,  among  the  orthodox 
Christians,  who  advocate  the  salvation  of  all,  and  he 
challenges  them,  like  Origen,  to  advocate  also  the 
redemption  of  the  devil  and  his  angels.  Thus  though 
the  virus  of  Roman  Paganism  was  extending,  the 
truth  of  the  Gospel  was  yet  largely  held.  And  it 
was  the  immense  power  Augustine  came  to  wield 
that  so  dominated  the  church  that  it  afterwards 
stamped  out  the  doctrine  of  universal  salvation. 

Augustine  assumed  and  insisted  that  the  words 
defining  the  duration  of  punishment,  in  the  New 
Testament,  teach  its  endlessness,  and 
Augustine's  Criti-  the  claim  set  up  by  Augustine  is  the 
cisms  and  Mistakes,  one  still  held  by  the  advocates  of 
"  the  dying  belief,"  that  est  emus  in 
the  Latin,  and  aionios  in  t  he  original  Greek,  mean 
interminable  duration.  It  seems  that  a  Spanish 
presbyter,  Orosius,  visited  Augustine  in  the  year 
413,  and  besought  him  for  arguments  to  meet  the 


^Enchiridion  cxii:  "  Frustra  itaque  nonulli,  imo  quam  plurimi,  ffiter- 
nam  damnatorum  poenam  et  cruciatus  sine  intermissione  perpetuos  hu- 
mano  miserantur  affectu,  atque  ita  futurum  esse  non  credunt.  " 

^Misericordibus  nostris.     De  Civ.  Dei.,  xxi:  17. 


274     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

position  that  punishment  is  not  to  be  without  end, 
because  aionios  does  not  denote  eternal,  but  limited 
duration.  Augustine  replied  that  though  aion  sig- 
nifies limited  as  well  as  endless  duration,  the  Greeks 

only  used  aionios  for  endless;  and  he 
Augustine's  originated  the  argument  so  much  re- 

Ignorance,  sorted  to  even  yet,  based  on  the  fact 

that  in  Matt,  xxv:  46,  the  same  word 
is  applied  to  "life,"  and  to  "punishment."  The 
student  of  Greek  need  not  be  told  that  Augustine's 
argument  is  incorrect,  and  he  scarcely  needs  to  be 
assured  that  Augustine  did  not  know  Greek.  This 
he  confesses.  He  says  he  "hates  Greek,"  and  the 
"  grammar  learning  of  the  Greeks. "  ^  It  is  anoma- 
lous in  the  history  of  criticism  that  generations  of 
scholars  should  take  their  cue  in  a  matter  of  Greek 
definition  from  one  who  admits  that  he  had  "learned 
almost  nothing  of  Greek,"  and  was  "not  competent 
to  read  and  understand  "  the  language,  and  reject 
the  positions  held  by  those  who  were  born  Greeks! 
That  such  a  man  should  contradict  and  subvert  the 
teachings  of  such  men  as  Clement,  Origen,  the 
Gregories  and-  others  whose  mother-tongue  was 
Greek,  is  passing  strange.  But  his  powerful  influ- 
ence, aided  by  the  civil  arm,  established  his  doctrine 


^Graecae  autem  linguae  non  sit  nobis  tantus  habitus,  ut  talium  rerum 
libris  legendis  et  intelligendis  ullo  modo  reperiamur  idonei,  (De  Trin.  lib 
III );  and,  et  ego  quidem  grsecse  linguae  perparum  assecutus  sum,  et  prope 
nihil.  (Oontra  litteras  Petiliani,  lib  Il.xxxviii,  91.  Migne,  Vol.  XLIII.)  Quid 
autem  erat  causae  cur  graecas  litteras  oderam  quibus  puerulus  imbuebar  ae 
nunc  quidem  mihi  satis  exploratum  est:  "  But  what  was  the  cause  of  my 
dislike  of  Greek  literature,  which  I  studied  from  my  boyhood,  I  cannot  even 
now  understand.  "  Conf.  1: 13  .  This  ignorance  of  the  original  Scriptures 
was  a  poor  outfit  with  which  to  furnish  orthodox  critics  for  a  thousand 
years.    See  RosenmuUer,  Hist.  Interp.,  iii„  40. 


AUGUSTINE— DETERIORATION  CONTINUED.    275 

till  it  came  to  rule  the  centuries.  Augustine  al- 
ways quotes  the  New  Testament  from  the  old  Latin 
version,  the  Itala,  from  which  the  Vulgate  was 
formed,  instead  of  the  original  Greek.  See  Preface 
to  '  *  Confessions. "  It  seems  that  the  doctrine  of  Ori- 
GEN  prevailed  in  Northeastern  Spain  at  this  time,  and 
that  Jerome's  translation  of  Origen's  **  Principiis  " 
had  circulated  with  good  effect,  and  that  Augustine, 
to  counteract  the  influence  of  Origen's  book,  wrote 
in  415,  a  small  work,  "Against  the  Priscillianists  and 
Origenists. "  From  about  this  time  began  the  efforts 
of  Augustine  and  his  followers  that  subsequently 
entirely  changed  the  character  of  Christian  theology. 
Says  Milman:  "  The  Augustinian  theology  coin- 
cided with  the  tendencies  of  the  age  towards  the 
growth  of  the  strong  sacerdotal  sys- 
Milman  on  tern;  and  the  sacerdotal  system  rec- 

Augustinianism.  onciled  Christendom  with  the  Augus- 
tinian theolo^. "  And  it  was  in  the 
age  of  Augustine,  at  the  maturity  of  his  powers, 
that  the  Latin  church  developed  its  theological  sys- 
tem, ' '  differing  at  every  point  from  the  earlier  Greek 
theology,  starting  from  different  premises,  and  actu- 
ated throughout  by  another  motive, "  '^  and  from  that 
time,  for  nearly  fifteen  centuries  it  held  sway,  and 
for  more  than  a  thousand  years  the  sentiment  of 
Christendom  was  little  more  or  less  than  the  echo  of 
the  voice  of  Augustine.  "  When  Augustine  appeared 
the  Greek  tongue  was  dying  out,  the  Greek  spirit 
was  waning,  the   Paganism  of   Rome   and  its  civil 

7Latin  Christ.  I, 


276    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

genius  were  combined,  and  a  Roman  emperor 
usurped  the  throne  of  the  God  of  love. "  ^ 

Augustine  declared  that  God  had  no  kind  pur- 
pose in  punishing;  that  it  would  not  be  unjust  to 
torment  all  souls  forever;  a  few  are  saved  to  illus- 
trate God's  mercy.  The  majority  "are  predes- 
tinated to  eternal  fire  with  the  devil."  He  held, 
however,  that  all  punishments  beyond  the  grave  are 
not  endless.  He  says,  "  Non  autem  omnes  veniunt 
in  sempiternas  poenas,  quae  post  illud  judicium  sunt 
futurae,  qui  post  mortem  sustinent  temporales. "  ^ 

Augustine,  however,  held  the  penalties  of  sin  in 
a  much  milder  form  than  do  his  degenerate  theologi- 
cal descendants  in  modern  times.  He 
Augustine  Less  Se-  teaches  that  the  lost  still  retain  good- 
vere  Than  Mod-  ^  i      i  i     ^     x,      j     ,  j 

„   ,    .  ness, — too  valuable  to  be  destroyed, 

and  on  that  account  the  worst  are 
not  in  absolute  evil,  but  only  in  a  lower  degree  of 
good.  ' '  Grief  for  lost  good  in  a  state  of  punishment 
is  a  witness  of  a  good  nature.  For  he  who  grieves 
for  the  lost  peace  for  his  nature,  grieves  for  it  by 
means  of  some  remains  of  peace,  by  which  it  is 
caused  that  nature  should  be  friendly  to  itself.  "  He 
taught  that  while  unbaptized  children  must  be 
damned  in  a  Gehenna  of  fire,  their  torments  would 
be  light  {Icvissimd)  compared  with  the  torment  of 
other  sinners,  and  that  their  condition  would  be 
far  preferable  to  non-existence,  and  so  on  the  whole 
a  blessing.  In  a  limbus  infantuui  they  would  only 
receive  a  initissima  damnatio.  He  also  taught  that 
death  did  not    necessarily    end    probation,    as    is 

sAlIen,  Cont.  Christ.  Thought,  p.  156. 
9De  Civ.  Dei. 


AUGUSTINE -DETERIORATION  CONTINUED.    277 

quite  fully  shown  under  "Christ's  Descent  into  Ha- 
des. "  Augustine's  idea  was  reduced  to  rhyme  in 
the  sixteenth  century  by  the  Rev.  Michael  Wig- 
GLESWORTH,  of  Maiden,  Mass.,  who  was  the  Puritan 
pastor  of  the  church  in  that  place.  A  curious  fact 
in  the  history  of  the  parish  is  this, — that  the  church 
in  which  these  ridiculous  sentiments  were  uttered 
became,  in  1828,  by  vote  of  the  parish,  Universalist, 
and  is  now  the  Universalist  church  in  Maiden.  The 
poem  represents  God  as  saying  to  non-elect  infants : 

"You  sinners  are,  and  such  a  share 

As  sinners  may  expect, 
Such  you  shall  have,  for  I  do  save 

None  but  my  own  elect. 
Yet  to  compare  your  sin  with  theirs 

Who  lived  a  longer  time, 
I  do  confess  yours  is  much  less 

Though  every  sin's  a  crime. 
A  crime  it  is,  therefore  in  bliss 

You  may  not  hope  to  dwell, 
But  unto  you  I  shall  allow 

The  easiest  room  m  hell!" 

Augustine  thought  that  the  cleansing  fire  might 
burn  away  venial  sins  between  death  and  the  resur- 
rection. He  says:  "  I  do  not  refute  it,  because, 
perhaps,  it  is  true;  "  ^'^  and  that  the  sins  of  the  good 
may  be  eradicated  by  a  similar  process. 

He  was  certainly  an  example  that  might  advan- 
tageously have  been  copied  by  opponents  of  Univer- 
salism  in  very  recent  years.  Though  he  said  the 
church  "detested"  it,  he  kindly  added:  "They  who 
believe  this,  and  yet  are  Catholics,  seem  to  me  to  be 
deceived  by  a  certain  human  tenderness,  "  and  he 

lODe  Civ.  Dei.  "  non  redarguo,  quia  forsitan  verum  est." 


278     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

urged  Jerome  to  continue  to  translate  Origen  for  the 
benefit  of  the  African  church !  " 

Under    such    malign   influences,    however,    the 
broad  and    generous    theology    of    the   East   soon 
passed  away;  the  language  in  which 
Decadence  and         it   was  expressed — the  language   of 
Deterioration.  Clement,  Origen,  Basil,  the  Greg- 

ORiES,  became  unknown  among  the 
Christians  of  the  West;  the  cruel  doctrines  of  Au- 
gustine harmonized  with  the  cruelty  of  the  bar- 
barians and  of  Roman  Paganism  amalgamated,  and 
thus  Africa  smothered  the  milder  spirit  of  Christen- 
dom, and  Augustine  riveted  the  fetters  that  were  to 
manacle  the  church  for  more  than  ten  long  centu- 
ries. "  The  triumph  of  Latin  theology  was  the  death 
of  rational  exegesis.  " 

But  before  this  evil  influence  prevailed,  some  of 
the  great  Latin  fathers  rivaled  the  immortal  leaders 
in  the  Oriental  church.  Among  these  was  Ambrose, 
of  whom  Jerome  says,  "nearly  all  his  books  are  full 
of  Origenism,"  which  Huet  repeats,  while  the  "  Dic- 
tionary of  Christian  Biography"  tells  us  that  he 
teaches  that  "  even  to  the  wicked  death  is  a  gain." 
Thus  the  genial  thought  of  Origen  was  still  potent, 
even  in  the  West,  though  a  harder  theology  was  over- 
coming  it. 

Says  Hagenbach:  •' In  proportion  to  the  devel- 
opment of  ecclesiastical  orthodoxy  into  fixed  and 
systematic  shape  was  the  loss  of  individual  freedom 
in  respect  to  the  formation  of  doctrines,  and  the  in- 
creased peril  of  becoming  heretical.     The  more  lib- 

»Ep.  8. 


AUGUSTINE— DETERIORATION  CONTINUED.    279 

eral  tendency  of  former  theologians,  such  as  Origen, 
could  no  longer  be  tolerated,  and  was  at  length  con- 
demned. But,  notwithstanding  this  external  con- 
demnation, the  spirit  of  Origen  continued  to  animate 
the  chief  theologians  of  the  East,  though  it  was  kept 
within  narrower  limits.  The  works  of  this  great" 
teacher  were  also  made  known  in  the  West  by  Jerome 
and  Rufinus,  and  exerted  an  influence  even  upon  his 
opponents. "  After  Justinian  the  Greek  empire  and 
influence  contracted,  and  the  Latin  and  Roman 
power  expanded.  Latin  became  the  language  of 
Christianity,  and  Augustine's  system  and  followers 
used  it  as  the  instrument  of  molding  Christianity 
into  an  Africo-Romano  heathenism.  The  Apostles' 
and  Nicene  creeds  were  disregarded,  and  Arianism, 
Origenism,  Pelagianism,  Manichaeism  and  other  so- 
called  heresies  were  nearly  or  quite  obliterated,  and 
the  Augustinian  inventions  of  original  and  inherited 
depravity,  predestination,  and  endless  hell  torments, 
became  the  theology  of  Christendom. 

Thus,   says  Schaff,    <*the  Roman  state,  with  its 
laws,  institutions,  and  usages,  was  still  deeply  rooted 

in  heathenism.  The  Christianizing 
Christianity  of  the  state    amounted  therefore  to 

Paganized.  a  paganizing  and  secularizing  of  the 

church.  The  world  overcame  the 
church  as  much  as  the  church  overcame  the  world, 
and  the  temporal  gain  of  Christianity  was  in  many 
respects  canceled  by  spiritual  loss.  The  mass  of  the 
Roman  Empire  was  baptized  only  with  water,  not 
with  the  spirit  and  fire  of  the  Gospel,  and  it 
smuggled  heathen  practices  and  manners  into  the 
sanctuary  under  a  new  name. "     The  broad  faith  of 


28o    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

the  primitive  Christians  paled  and  faded  before  the 
lurid  terrors  of  Augnstinianism.  It  vanished  in  the 
Sixth  Century,  "crushed  out,"  says  Bigg,  "by  tyr- 
anny and  the  leaden  ignorance  of  the  age. "  It  re- 
mained in  the  East  a  while,  was  "  widely  diffused 
among  the  monasteries  of  Egypt  and  Palestine,"  and 
only  ceased  when  Augnstinianism  and  Catholicism 
and  the  power  of  Rome  ushered  in  and  fostered  the 
darkness  of  the  Dark  Ages.  Says  an  accurate  writer: 
' '  If  Augustine  had  not  been  born  an  African,  and 
trained  as  a  Manichee,  nay,  if  he  had  only  faced  the 
labor  of  learning  Greek — a  labor  from  which  he  con- 
fesses that  he  had  shrunk — the  whole  stream  of  Chris- 
tian theology  might  have  been  purer  and  more 
sweet. " 

In  no  other  respect  did  Augustine  differ  more 
widely  from  Origen  and  the  Alexandrians  than  in 
his  intolerant  spirit.     Even  Tertul- 
Augustinianism         lian  conceded   to   all   the   right    of 
Cruel.  opinion.       Gregory    of    Nazianzus, 

Ambrose,  Athanasius  and  Augus- 
tine himself  in  his  earlier  days,  recorded  the  toler- 
ance that  Christianity  demands.  But  he  afterwards 
came  to  advocate  and  defend  the  persecution  of  re- 
ligious opponents.  MiLM AN  observes:  "With  shame 
and  horror  we  hear  from  Augustine  himself  that 
fatal  axiom  which  impiously  arrayed  cruelty  in 
the  garb  of  Christian  charity.  "  ^^  He  was  the  first  in 
the  long  line  of  Christian  persecutors,  and  illustrates 
the  character  of  the  theology  that  swayed  him  in  the 
wicked  spirit  that  impelled  him  to  advocate  the  right 

"Latin  Christianity,  1. 127. 


AUGUSTINE— DETERIORATION  CONTINUED.    281 

to  persecute  Christians  who  differ  from  those  in 
power.  The  dark  pages  that  bear  the  record  of  sub- 
sequent centuries  are  a  damning  witness  to  the  cruel 
spirit  that  actuated  Christians,  and  the  cruel  theol- 
ogy that  impelled  it.  Augustine  "  was  the  first  and 
ablest  asserter  of  the  principle  which  led  to  Albigen- 
sian  crusades,  Spanish  armadas,  Netherland's  butch- 
eries, St.  Bartholomew  massacres,  the  accursed  infa- 
mies of  the  Inquisition,  the  vile  espionage,  the  hideous 
bale  fires  of  Seville  and  Smithfield,  the  racks,  the 
gibbets,  the  thumbscrews,  the  subterranean  torture- 
chambers  used  by  churchly  torturers. "  ^^  And 
George  Sand  well  says  that  the  Roman  church  com- 
mitted suicide  the  day  she  invented  an  implacable 
God  and  eternal  damnation.^* 


J^Farrar's  Lives  of  the  Fathers. 

M"  L'  Eglise  Romaine  s'est  porte  le  dernier  coup:  elle  a  consomme  son 
suicide  le  jour  on  elle  a  fait  Dieu  implacable  et  la  damnation  eternelle.  " 
Spiridion. 


XXI. 

UNSUCCESSFUL  ATTEMPTS  TO  SUPPRESS 
UNIVERSALISM. 

Historians  and  writers  on  the  state  of  opinion  in 
the  early  church  have  quite  often  erred  in  declaring 
that  an  ecclesiastical  council  pronounced  the  doctrine 
of  universal  salvation  heretical,  as  early  as  the  Sixth 
Century.  Even  so  learned  and  accurate  a  writer  as 
our  own  Dr.  Ballou,  has  fallen  into  this  error, 
though  his  editor,  the  Rev.  A.  St.  John  Chambre, 
D.  D. ,  subsequently  corrected  the  mistake  in  a  brief 
note. 

A.  D.  399  a  council  in  Jerusalem  condemned  the 
Origenists,  and  all  who  held  with  them,  that  the  Son 
was  in  any  way  subordinate  to  the  Father.  In  401  a 
council  in  Alexandria  anathematized  the  writings  of 
Origen,  presumably  for  the  same  reason  as  above. 
Certainly  his  views  of  human  destiny  were  not  men- 
tioned. 

In  544-6,  a  condemnation  of  Origen's  views  of 
human  salvation  was  attempted  to  be  extorted  from 
a  small,  local  council  in  Constantinople,  by  the  em- 
peror Justinian,  but  his  edict  was  not  obeyed  by  the 
council.  He  issued  an  edict  to  Mennas,  patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  requiring  him  to  assemble  the  bishops 
resident,  or  casiially  present  there,  to  condemn  the 
doctrine  of  universal  restoration.  Fulminating  ten 
anathemas,  he  especially  urged  Mennas  to  anathe- 

282 


ATTEMPTS  TO  SUPPRESS  UNIVERSALISM.    283 

matize  the  doctrine  "that  wicked  men  and  devils 
will  at  length  be  discharged  from  their  torments, 
and  re-established  in  their  original  state."  ^  He 
wrote  to  Mennas  requiring  him  to  frame  a  canon  in 
these  words: 

''Whoever  says  or  thinks  that  the  torments  of  the 
demons  and  of  impious  men  are  temporal,  so  that 
they  will  at  length  come  to  an  end,  or  whoever  holds 
to  a  restoration  either  of  the  demons  or  of  the  im- 
pious, let  him  be  anathema." 

It  is  conceded  that  the  half -heathen  emperor  held 
to  the  idea  of  endless  misery,  for  he  proceeds  not 
only  to  defend,  but  to  define  the  doc- 
trine. 2  He  does  not  merely  say,  "We 
Justinian's  Views,  ^^x^^-^^  -^^  aionion  kolasin;'  iox  that 
was  just  what  Origen  himself  taught. 
Nor  does  he  say  "the  word  aionion  has  been  misim- 
derstood;  it  denotes  endless  duration,"  as  he  would 
have  said,  had  there  been  such  a  disagreement.  But, 
writing  in  Greek,  with  all  the  words  of  that  copious 
language  from  which  to  choose,  he  says :  ' '  The  holy 
church  of  Christ  teaches  an  endless  ceonian  {atdcutetos 
aionios)  life  to  the  righteous,  and  endless  {ateleutetos) 
punishment  to  the  wicked. "  If  he  supposed  aionios 
denoted  endless  duration,  he  would  not  have  added 
the  stronger  word  to  it.  The  fact  that  he  qualified 
it  by  ateleutetos,  demonstrated  that  as  late  as  the 
sixth  century  the  former  word  did  not  signify  endless 
duration. 

Justinian  need  only  to  have  consulted  his  con- 


iNicephorus,  Eccle.  Hist.,xvii:27.    Hefele,  iv:  220. 

SMurdock's  Mosheim  I,  pp.  MO-U;   Gieseler.  Hist,  vi,  p.  478.    Also   Ha- 
genbach  and  Neander.    Cave's  Historia  Literaria. 


284     UNIVERSALIS^!  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

temporary,  Olympiodorus,  who  wrote  on  this  very- 
subject,  to  vindicate  his  language.  In  his  commen- 
tary on  the  Meteorologica  of  Aristotle, ^  he  says: 
"  Do  not  suppose  that  the  soul  is  punished  for  end- 
less ages  (direLpovs  dtwvas)  in  Tartarus.  Very  prop- 
erly the  soul  is  not  punished  to  gratify  the  re- 
venge of  the  divinity,  but  for  the  sake  of  healing. 
But  we  say  that  the  soul  is  punished  for  an  ceonian 
period,  calling  its  life,  and  its  allotted  period  of  pun- 
ishment, its  (£011."  It  will  be  noticed  that  he  not 
only  denies  endless  punishment,  and  denies  that  the 
doctrine  can  be  expressed  by  aionios,  but  declares 
that  punishment  is  temporary  and  results  in  the  sin- 
ner's improvement.  Justinian  not  only  concedes 
that  aionios  requires  a  word  denoting  endlessness  to 
give  it  the  sense  of  limitless  duration,  but  he  insists 
that  the  council  shall  frame  a  canon  containing  a 
word  that  shall  indisputably  express  the  doctrine  of 
endless  woe,  while  it  shall  condemn  those  who  advo- 
cate universal  salvation.  Now  though  the  emperor 
exerted  his  great  influence  to  foist  his  heathen  doc- 
trine into  the  Church  canons,  he  failed ;  for  nothing 
resembling  it  appears  in  the  canons  enacted  by  the 
synodical  council. 

The  synod  voted  fifteen  canons,  not  one  of  which 
condemns  universal  restoration. 

The  first  canon  reads  thus :   "If   anyone    asserts 

the  fabulous  pre-existence  of  souls, 

Home  Synod  and  the  monstrous  restitution  which 

Canons.  followsfrom  it,  lethim  be  anathema." 

This     condemnation,    it     will    be 

readily  seen,  is  not  of  universal  salvation,   but  of  a 

«Vol.  I,  p.  282.    Ideler's  edition. 


ATTEMPTS  TO  SUPPRESS  UNIVERSALISM.    285 

''monstrous"  restitution  based  on  the  soul's  pre- 
existence.  That  this  view  is  correct  appears  from 
the  fourteenth  anathema : 

"If  anyone  says  that  there  will  be  a  single  unity 
of  all  rational  beings,  their  substances  and  individ- 
ualities being  taken  away  together  with  their  bodies, 
and  also  that  there  will  be  an  identity  of  cognition  as 
also  of  persons,  and  that  in  the  fabulous  restitution 
they  will  only  be  naked  even  as  they  had  existed  in 
that  prae-existence  which  they  insanely  introduced, 
let  him  be  anathema. " 

The  reader  will  at  once  perceive  that  these 
canons  do  not  describe  any  genuine  form  of  our 
faith,  but  only  a  distorted  caricature  which  no  doubt 
was  thought  to  represent  the  doctrine  they  opposed. 
But  not  one  of  the  nine  anathemas  ordered  by 
Justinian  was  sanctioned  by  the  council.  They 
were  laid  before  the  Home  Synod,  but  the  Synod  did 
not  indorse  them.  Fifteen  canons  were  passed,  but 
the  Synod  refused  to  reprobate  universal  salvation. 
Justinian  was  unable  to  compel  the  bishops  under 
his  control  to  condemn  the  doctrine  he  hated,  but 
which  they  must  have  favored.  The  theory  here  con- 
demned is  not  that  of  universal  salvation,  but  the 
"fabulous  pre- existence  of  souls,  and  the  monstrous 
restitution  that  results  from  it.  * 

The  bishops,  says  Landon,  declared  that  they 
adhered  to  the  doctrines  of  Athanasius,  Basil  and 
the  Gregories.  The  doctrine  of  Theodore  on  the 
Sonship  of  Christ  was  condemned,  also  the  teachings 
of  Theodoret.      "Origen  was  not  condemned."^ 

^Mansi  IX,  p.  395;  Hefele,  iv:  336. 
SLandon,  pp.  177-8. 


286     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

Even  the  influence  of  Justinian  and  his  obse- 
quious bishop,  and  his  disreputable  queen,  failed  to 
force  the  measure  through.  The  action  of  this  local 
Synod  has  been  incorrectly  ascribed  to  the  Fifth 
CEcumenical  Council,  nine  years  later,  which  has  also 

been  inacurately  supposed  to  have  con- 
The  Council  Re-       ,  j  tt    •  i-  i         -i. 

,      ,  ^    r^     ,        deraned  U niversalism,  when  it  mere- 
fused  to  Condemn  ' 

Universalism.  ^Y  reprehended  some  of  the  vagaries 

of  "Origenism  "  —  doctrines  that 
even  Origen  himself  never  accepted,  but  that  were 
falsely  ascribed  to  him  by  ignorant  or  malicious  op- 
ponents; doctrines  that  no  more  resemble  universal 
restoration,  as  taught  by  the  Alexandrine  fathers, 
than  they  resemble  Theosophy  or  Buddhism.  So 
that,  though  the  Home  Synod  was  called  by  the  Em- 
peror Justinian  expressly  to  condemn  Universalism, 
and  was  commanded  by  imperial  edict  to  anathema- 
tize it,  and  though  it  formulated  fifteen  canons,  it 
refused  to  obey  the  Emperor,  and  did  not  say  one 
word  against  the  doctrine  the  Emperor  wished  to  an- 
athematize. The  local  council  came  to  no  decision. 
Justinian  had  just  arbitrarily  condemned  the  writ- 
ings of  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  and  Theodoret, 
and  a  terrible  controversy  and  division  ensued,  and 
Theodorus,  of  Cesarsea,  declared  that  both  himself 
and  Pelagius,  who  had  sought  the  condemnation  of 
Origen,  ought  to  be  burnt  alive  for  their  conduct.^ 

In  the  Fifth  General  Council  of  553  the  name  of 
Origen  appears  with  others  in  the  eleventh  canon, 
but  the  best  scholars  think  that  the  insertion  of  his 
name  is  a  forgery. 

Whether  so  or  not,  there  is  not  a  word  referring 

sLandcn,  Manual  of  Councils,  London,  1846,  p.  174. 


ATTEMPTS  TO  SUPPRESS  UNIVERSALISM.    287 

to  his  views  of  human  destiny.  His  name  only  appears 
among  the  names  of  the  heretics,  such  as  "  Arius, 
Eunomius,  Macedonius,  Apollinaris,  Eutyches,  Ori- 
gen  and  other  impious  men,  and  all  other  heretics 
who  are  condemned  and  anathematized  by  the  Cath- 
olic and  Apostolical  Church,  etc."^  The  Fifth  Ecu- 
menical Council,  which  was  held  nine  years  later  than 
the  local,  neither  condemned  Origen  by  name,  nor 
anathematized  his  Universalism.  The  object  of  this 
council  was  to  condemn  certain  Nestorian  doctrines; 
and  as  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  the  most  explicit  of  Uni- 
versalists,  is  referred  to  with  honor  by  the  council, 
and  as  the  denial  of  endless  punishment  by  Origen, 
and  his  advocacy  of  Universalism  are  not  named,  we 
cannot  avoid  the  conviction  that  the  council  was  con- 
trolled by  those  who  held,  or  at  least  did  not  repudi- 
ate Universalism. 

Great  confusion  exists  among  the  authorities  on 
this  subject.  The  local  council  has  been  confounded 
with  the  general.  Hefele  has  disentangled  the  per- 
plexities. 

It  was  not  even  at  that  late  day — three  centuries 
after  his  death — the  Universalism  of  Origen  that 
caused  the  hatred  of  his  opponents,  but  his  opposition 
to  the  Episcopizing  policy  of  the  church,  his  insisting 
on  the  triple  sense  of  the  Word,  etc.,  and  the  pecul- 
iar form  of  a  mis-stated  doctrine  of  the  restoration.^ 

Now,  let  the  reader  remember  that  for  more  than 

^ The  canon  reads:  "  Si  quis  non  anathematizat  Arium,  Eunomium, 
Macedonium,  ApoUinarium,  Nestorium,  Eutychen,  Origenem  cum  impiia 
eoruni  conscriptis,  et  alios  omnes  hsreticos,  qui  condemnati  at  anathemati- 
zati  sunt  a  Catholica  et  Apostolica  Ecclesia,"  etc. 

^Dietelmaier  declares  that  many  of  the  church  doctors  agreed  with  Ori- 
GEN  in  advocating  the  salvability  of  t'.ie  devil. 


288     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

five  hundred  years,  during-  which  Universalism  had 

prevailed,  not  a  single  treatise  against 
Universalism  not       •,    •     i  .1  ■>  •.. 

^     ,         ,  ,  It  IS  known  to  have   been  written. 

Condemned  for 

Five  Centuries.  And  with  the  exception  of  Augus- 
tine, no  opposition  appears  to  have 
been  aroused  against  it  on  the  part  of  any  eminent 
Christian  writer.  And  not  only  so,  but  A.  D.  381, 
at  the  first  great  Ecumenical  Council  of  Constanti- 
nople, the  intellectual  leader  was  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
who  was  only  second  to  Origen  as  an  advocate  of 
universal  restoration.  Thus  his  followers,  not  only, 
but  his  opponents  on  other  points,  accepted  the  great 
truth  of  the  Gospel.  As  Dr.  Beecher  pointedly  ob- 
serves: "  It  is  also  a  striking  fact  that  while  Origen 
lies  under  a  load  of  odium  as  a  heretic,  Gregory  of 
Nyssa,  who  taught  the  doctrine  of  the  restoration  of 
all  things  more  fully  even  than  Origen,  has  been 
canonized,  and  stands  high  on  the  roll  of  eminent 
saints,  even  in  the  orthodox  Roman  Catholic  Church. " 
Beecher's  conclusion  is,  "That  the  modern  or- 
thodox views  as  to  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punish- 
ment, as  opposed  to  final  restoration,  were  not  fully 
developed  and  established  till  the  middle  of  the  Sixth 
Century,  and  that  then  they  were  not  established 
by  thorough  argument,  but  by  imperial  authority. " 
But  the  fact  is  that  they  were  not  even  then  matured 
and  established. 

The  learned  Professor  Plum  pt  re  says  in  the  "Dic- 
tionary of  Christian  Biography":  "We  have  no 
evidence  that  the  belief  in  the  dTroKaTao-Tao-is,  which 
prevailed  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  was  ever 
definitely  condemned  by  any  council  of  the  Church, 
and  so  far  as  Origen  was  named  as  coming  under  the 


ATTEMPTS  TO  SUPPRESS  UNIVERSALISM.    289 

church's  censure  it  was  rather  as  if  involved  in  the 
general  sentence  passed  upon  the  leaders  of  Nestor- 
ianism,  than  singled  out  for  special  and  characteris- 
tic errors.  So  the  council  of  Constantinople,  the  so- 
called  Fifth  General  Council,  A.  D.  553,  condemns 
Arius,  Eunomius,  Macedonius,  Apollinarius,  Nesto- 
rius,  Eutyches  and  Origen  in  a  lump,  but  does  not 
specify  the  errors  of  the  last-named,  as  though  they 
differed  in  kind  from  theirs,  and  it  is  not  till  in  the 
council  of  Constantinople,  known  as  in  Trullo  (A. 
D.  696)  that  we  find  an  anathema  which  specifies 
somewhat  cloudily  the  guilt  of  Theodore  of  Mopsu- 
estia,  and  Origen,  and  Didymus,  and  Evagrius,  as 
consists  in  their  *  inventing  a  mythology  after  the 
manner  of  the  Greeks,  and  inventing  changes  and 
migrations  for  our  souls  and  bodies,  and  impiously 
uttering  drunken  ravings  as  to  the  future  life  of  the 
dead. '  It  deserves  to  be  noted  that  this  ambiguous 
anathema  pronounced  by  a  council  of  no  authority, 
under  the  weak  and  vicious  Emperor  Justinian  IT, 
is  the  only  approach  to  a  condemnation  of  the  eschat- 
ology  of  Origen  which  the  annals  of  the  church  coun- 
cils present."  ^ 

Significant  Facts  and  Conclusions. 
Now  let  the  reader  recapitulate:  (i)  Origen  dur- 
ing his  life-time  was  never  opposed  for  his  Universal- 
ism;  (2)  after  his  death  Methodius,  about  A.  D.  300, 
attacked  his  views  of  the  resurrection,  creation  and 
pre-existence,  but  said  not  a  word  against  his  Uni- 
versalism;  (3)  ten  years  later  Pamphilus  and  Euse- 
Bius  (A.  D.  310)  defended  him  against  nine  charges 

•Article  Eschatology  p.  194;  also  Spirits  in  Prison,  p.  41. 


290    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

that  had  been  brought  against  his  views,  but  his  Uni- 
versalism  was  not  among  them;  (4)  in  330  Marcel- 
Lus  of  Ancyra,  a  Universalist,  opposed  him  for  his 
views  of  the  Trinity,  and  (5)  Eustathius  for  his 
teachings  concerning  the  Witch  of  Endor,  but  lim- 
ited their  arraignment  to  those  items;  (6)  in  376 
Epiphanius  assailed  his  heresies,  but  he  did  not 
name  Universalism  as  among  them,  and  in  394  he 
condemned  Origen's  doctrine  of  the  salvation  of  the 
Devil,  but  not  of  all  mankind;  (7)  in  399  and  401,  his 
views  of  Christ's  death  to  save  the  Devil  were  at- 
tacked by  Epiphanius,  Jerome  and  Theophilus,  and 
his  advocacy  of  the  subordination  of  Christ  to  God 
was  condemned,  but  not  his  teachings  of  man's  uni- 
versal salvation;  and  (8)  it  was  not  till  544  and  again 
in  553  that  his  enemies  formulated  attacks  on  that 
doctrine,  and  made  a  cat's-paw  of  a  half-heathen  Em- 
peror, and  even  then,  though  the  latter  framed  a 
canon  for  the  synod,  it  was  never  adopted,  and  the 
council  adjourned — owing,  it  must  have  been,  to  the 
Universalistic  sentiment  in  it — without  a  word  of 
condemnation  of  Origen's  Universalism.  With  the 
exception  of  Augustine,  the  doctrine  which  had 
been  constantly  advocated,  often  by  the  most  emi- 
nent, did  not  evoke  a  frown  of  opposition  from  any 
eminent  scholar  or  saint. 

The  character  of  these  ancient  synods  and  coun- 
cils is  well  described  by  Gregory  Nazianzen,  A.  D. 

382,  in  a  letter  to  Procopius:     "I 
The  Ancient  am  determined  to  avoid  every  assem- 

Councils.  bly  of  bishops.     I  have  never  seen  a 

single  instance  in  which  a  synod  did 
any  good.     Strife  and  ambition  dominate  them  to  an 


ATTEMPTS  TO  SUPPRESS  UNIVERSALISM.    291 

incredible  degree.     *     *     *     From  councils  and  syn- 
ods I  will  keep  myself  at  a  distance,  for  I  have  ex- 
perienced that  most  of  them,  to  speak  with  modera- 
tion, are  not  worth  much.     *     *     *     I  will  not  sit  in 
the  seat  of  synods,  while  geese  and  cranes  confused 
wrangle.      Discord   is   there,   and   shameful    things, 
hidden  before,  are  gathered  into  one  meeting  place 
of  rivals."     Milman  tells  us:    "  Nowhere  is  Christ- 
ianity less  attractive,  and  if  we  look  to  the  ordinary 
tone  and  character  of  the  proceedings,  less  authori- 
tative than  in  the  Councils  of  the  Church.     It  is  in 
general  a  fierce  collision  of  rival  factions,  neither  of 
which  will  yield,  each  of  which  is  solemnly  pledged 
against  conviction.     Intrigue,  injustice,  violence,  de- 
cisions on  authority  alone,  and  that  the  authority  of 
a  turbulent  majority,  decisions  by  wild  acclamation 
rather  than  after  sober  enquiry,  detract  from  the  rev- 
erence, and  impugn  the-  judgments,  at  least  of  the 
later  councils.     The  close  is  almost  invariably  a  ter- 
rible anathema,  in  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  dis- 
cern the  tones  of  human  hatred,  of  arrogant  triumph, 
of  rejoicing  at  the  damnation  imprecated  against  the 
humiliated  adversary. "  ^^    Scenes  of  strife  and  even 
murder  in  connection  with  ancient  ecclesiastical  coun- 
cils were  not  uncommon. 

There  is  no  evidence  whatever  to  show  that  it  was 
not  entirely  allowable  for  five  hundred  years  after 
Christ,  to  entertain  the  belief  in  universal  salvation. 
Besides,  the  Council  of  Nice,  A.  D.  325,  had,  as  an 
active  member,  Eusebius,  Origen's  apologist,  a  pro- 
nounced Universalist ;  the  Council  of  Constantinople, 


WLatin  Christ.  I,  p.  227. 


2Q2    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

A.  D.  381,  had  as  active  members  the  two  Gregor- 
lES,  Nazianzus  and  Nyssa,  the  latter  as  outspoken  a 
Universalist  as  Origen  himself;  the  Council  of 
Ephesus,  A.  D.  431,  declared  that  Gregory  Nys- 
sen's  writings  were  thegreat  bulwark  against  heresy. 
The  fact  that  the  doctrine  was  and  had  been  for  cen- 
turies prevalent,  if  not  the  prevailing  sentiment, 
demonstrates  that  it  must  have  been  regarded  as  a 
Christian  doctrine  by  the  members  of  these  great 
councils,  or  they  would  have  fulminated  against  it. 

How  preposterous  the  idea  that  the  prevailing 
sentiment  of  Christendom  was  adverse  to  the  doc- 
trine of  universal  restoration  even  as  late  as  the  mid- 
dle of  the  Sixth  Century,  when  these  great,  heresy- 
hunting  bodies  met  and  dispersed  without  condemn- 
ing it,  even  at  the  dictation  of  a  tyrannical  Emperor, 
who  expressly  demanded  its  condemnation. 

I.  Neander  and  Gieseler  say  that  the  name  of 
Origen  was  foisted  into  the  declaration  of  the  Fifth 
Council  by  forgery  at  a  later  date.  2.  But  if  the 
condemnation  was  actually  adopted  it  was  of  ' '  Ori- 
genism, "  which  was  synonymous  with  other  opinions. 

3.  "  Origenism  "  could  not  have  meant  Universal- 
ism,  for  several  of  the  leaders  of  the  council  that 
condemned  Origenism  held  to  universal  restitution. 

4.  Besides,  the  council  eulogistically  referred  to  the 
Gregories  (Nazianzen  and  Nyssen)  who  were  Uni- 
versalists  as  explicit  as  was  Origen.  Manifestly,  if 
the  Council  had  meant  Universalism  by  "  Origenism, " 
it  woiild  not  have  condemned  as  a  deadly  heresy  in 
Origen  what  Gregory  of  Nyssa  advocated,  and  an- 
athematized the  one,  and  glorified  the  other. 

Justinian  not  only  commanded  the  council   to 


ATTEMPTS  TO  SUPPRESS  UNIVERSALISM.    293 

suppress  Universalism,  but  he  arbitrarily  closed  the 
schools  in  Athens,  Alexandria  and  An- 
Justinian's  Suppres-  tioch.and  drove  out  of  the  great  church 
sion  of  the  Truth,  centers  that  theological  science  that 
had  been  its  glory.  He  had  "brought 
the  whole  empire  under  his  sway  and  he  wished  in 
like  manner  to  settle  finally  the  law  and  the  dogmat- 
ics of  the  empire."  To  accomplish  this  evil  work  he 
found  an  aid  in  Rome,  in  a  "  characterless  Pope 
(Vigilius)  who,  in  gratifying  the  emperor  covered 
himself  with  disgrace,  and  jeopardized  his  position  in 
the  Occident."  But  he  succeeded  in  inaugurating 
measures  that  extinguished  the  broad  faith  of  the 
greatest  fathers  of  the  church.  "Henceforth,"  says 
Harnack,  "there  was  no  longer  a  theological  sci- 
ence going  back  to  first  principles."  ^^ 

The  historians  inform  us  that  Justinian  the 
great  opponent  of  Universalism  was  positive,  irrita- 
ble, apt  to  change  his  views,  and  accessible  to  the 
flatteries  and  influences  of  those  who  surrounded 
him,  yet  withal,  very  opinionated  in  insisting  upon 
any  view  he  happened  at  the  time  to  hold,  and  pre- 
pared to  enforce  compliance  by  the  free  employment 
of  his  despotic  power, "  a  "temporal  pope."  ^2  The 
corrupt  Bishop  Theophilus,  the  vile  Eudoxia  and 
the  equally  disreputable,  though  beautiful,  crafty 
and  unscrupulous  Theodora,  exercised  a  malign 
influence  on  Justinian,  the  Emperor,  and,  thus 
was  dictated  the  action  of  the  council  described 
above. 

Milman   declares:       "The    Emperor    Justinian 

"Outlines  Hist.  Dog.,  pp.  204,  8,  320,  323. 
i^Sozomen,  Eccl.  His^.;  Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall. 


294     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

unites  in  himself  the  most  opposite  vices, — insatiable 
rapacity  and  lavish  prodigality,  in- 
Justinian  and  tense  pride  and  contemptible  weak- 

His  Age.  ness,  unmeasured  ambition  and  das- 

tardly cowardice.  He  is  the  uxorious 
slave  of  his  Empress,  whom,  after  she  had  minis- 
tered to  the  licentious  pleasures  of  the  populace  as  a 
courtesan  and  as  an  actress  in  the  most  immodest  ex- 
hibitions, in  defiance  of  decency,  of  honor,  of  the  re- 
monstrances of  his  friends,  and  of  religion,  he  had 
made  the  partner  of  his  throne.  In  the  Christian 
Emperor  seemed  to  meet  the  crimes  of  those  who 
won  or  secured  their  empire  by  the  assasination  of 
all  whom  they  feared,  the  passion  for  public  diver- 
sions without  the  accomplishments  of  Nero,  the 
brute  strength  of  Commodus,  or  the  dotage  of  Claud- 
ius. "  And  he  was  the  champion  of  endless  punish- 
ment in  the  Sixth  Century  I 

Justinian  is  described  as  an  ascetic,  a  scholastic, 
and  a  pedant,  "neither  beloved  in  his  life,  nor 
regretted  at  his  death. " 

Theageof  Justinian,  says  Leg ky,  that  condemned 
Origen,  is  conceded  to  have  been  the  vilest  of  the 
Christian  centuries.  The  doctrine  of  a  hell  of  literal 
fire  and  endless  duration  had  begun  to  be  an  engine 
of  tyranny  in  the  hands  of  an  unscrupulous  priest- 
hood, and  a  tyrannical  emperor,  and  moral  degrada- 
tion had  kept  pace  with  the  theological  declination. 
"  The  universal  verdict  of  history  is  that  it  consti- 
tutes, without  a  single  exception,  the  most  thor- 
oughly base  and  despicable  form  that  civilization  has 
yet  assumed. "  Contrasted  with  the  age  of  Origen 
it  was  as  night  to  day.     And  the  persons  who  were 


ATTEMPTS  TO  SUPPRESS  UNIVERSALISM.    295 

most  active  and  prominent  in  the  condemnation  of 
the  great  Alexandrian  were  fit  implements  for  the 
task.  On  this  point  the  language  of  Farrar  in 
"  Mercy  and  Judgment  "  is  accurate:  *'  Every  fresh 
study  of  the  original  authorities  only  leaves  on  my 
mind  a  deeper  impression  that  even  in  the  Fifth  Cen- 
tury Universalism  as  regards  mankind  was  regarded 
as  a  perfectly  tenable  opinion." 

Thus  the  record  of  the  times  shows,  and  the  testi- 
mony of  the  scholars  who  have  made  the  subject  a 
careful  study  concedes,  that  though 
The  Divine  Light     there  were  sporadic  assaults  on  the 
Eclipsed.  doctrine  of  imiversal   restitution  in 

the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries;  they 
were  not  successful  in  placing  the  ban  of  a  single 
council  upon  it;  even  to  the  middle  of  the  Sixth  Cen- 
tury. So  far  as  history  shows  the  sublime  fact 
which  the  great  Alexandrians  made  prominent— the 

"  One  divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves," 

had  never  been  stigmatized  by  any  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  Christian  church  for  at  least  its  first  half 
a  millenium  of  years. 

The  subsequent  history  of  Christianity  shows  but 
too  plainly  that  the  continued  influence  of  Roman 
law  and  Pagan  theology  as  incarnated  in  the  mighty 
brain  of  Augustine,  came  to  dominate  the  Christian 
world,  and  at  length  almost  obliterate  the  faith 
once  delivered  to  the  saints— the  faith  that  exerted 
so  vast  an  influence  in  the  church's  earliest  and  best 
centuries— and  spread  thepall  of  darkness  over  Chris- 
tendom, so  that  the  light  of  the  central  fact  of  the 
Gospel  was  scarcely  seen  for  sad  and  cruel  cen- 
turies. 


XXII. 

THE  ECLIPSE  OF  UNIVERSALISM. 

The  submergence  of  Christian  Universalism  in 
the  dark  waters  of  Augustinian  Christo- paganism, 
after  having  been  the  prevailing  theology  of  Christen- 
dom for  centuries,  is  one  of  the  strange  phenomena 
in  the  history  of  religious  thought.  This  volume  ex- 
plains, in  part,  this  obscure  phenomenon.  History 
testifies  that  at  the  close  of  what  Hagenbach  calls 
the  second  period,  from  A.  D.  254  to  A.  D.  730,  the 
opinion  in  favor  of  endless  punishment  had  become 
"  more  general. "  Only  a  few  belonging  to  the  "  Or- 
igenist  humanity  *  *  *  still  dared  to  express  a 
glimmer  of  hope  in  favor  of  the  damned  *  *  * 
the  doctrine  of  the  restitution  of  all  things  shared  the 
fate  of  Origenism,  and  made  its  appearance  in  after 
ages  only  in  connection  with  other  heretical  notions." 
KiNGSLEY  attributes  the  decadence  and  deteriora- 
tion of  the  Alexandrine  School  and  its  doctrines  and 

methods,  to  the  abandonment  of  its 
Disappearance  of  intense  activity,  to  the  relinquish- 
the  Truth.  ment  of  the  grand  enthusiasm    for 

humanity  that  characterized  Clem- 
ent, Origen  and  their  co-workers.  He  says:  "  Hav- 
ing no  more  Heathens  to  fight,  they  began  fighting 
each  other;  *  *  *  they  became  dogmatists  * 
*  *  they  lost  the  knowledge  of  God,  of  righteous- 
ness, and  love,  and  peace.     That  Divine  Logos,  and 

296 


THE  ECLIPSE  OF  UNIVERSALISM.  297 

theology  as  a  whole  receded  farther  and  farther  aloft 
into  abysmal  heights,  as  it  became  a  mere  dreary 
system  of  dead  scientific  terms,  having  no  practical 
bearing  on  their  hearts  and  lives. "  In  a  word,  their 
abandonment  of  the  principles  of  Clement  and  his 
school,  left  the  field  open  to  the  more  practical,  di- 
rect and  methodical,  though  degraded  and  corrupt 
theories  of  Augustine  and  his  associates.  This  pro- 
cess continued  till  toward  the  middle  of  the  Seventh 
Century,  when,  as  Kingsley  observes:  "In  the 
year  640,  the  Alexandrians  who  were  tearing  each 
other  in  pieces  about  some  Jacobite  and  Melchite  con- 
troversy, to  me  incomprehensible  *  *  *  in  the 
midst  of  these  Jacobite  and  Melchite  controversies 
and  riots,  appeared  before  the  city  the  armies  of  cer- 
tain wild  and  unlettered  Arab  tribes.  A  short  and 
fruitless  struggle  followed ;  and  strange  to  say,  a  few 
months  swept  away  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  not 
only  the  wealth,  the  commerce,  the  castles,  and  the 
liberty,  but  the  philosophy  and  the  Christianity  of 
Alexandria;  crushed  to  powder,  by  one  fearful  blow, 
all  that  had  been  built  up  by  Alexander  and  the 
Ptolemies,  by  Clement  and  the  philosophers,  and 
made  void,  to  all  appearance,  nine  hundred  years  of 
human  toil.  The  people,  having  no  real  hold  on 
their  hereditary  creed,  accepted,  by  tens  of  thousands, 
that  of  the  Mussulman  invaders.  The  Christian 
remnant  became  tributaries,  and  Alexandria  dwin- 
dled from  that  time  forth  into  a  petty  seaport  town,"  ^ 
The  "  Universalist  Quarterly, "  January,  1878,  at- 
tributes the  decline  and  disappearance  of  Universal- 

lAlexandria  and  her  Schools.- 


298     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

ism  to  an  entire  absence  of  polemic  on  the  part  of  its 
advocates  ;  and  to  regarding  the  doctrine  as  eso- 
teric, instead  of  for  all ;  in  other  words,  the  undemo- 
cratic methods  of  those  who  accepted  it.  These  fac- 
tors, no  doubt,  contributed,  but  they  are  not  alone 
sufBcient  to  account  for  its  disappearance. ^ 

It  is  not  a  part  of  the  plan  of  this  work  to  follow 
its  fate  after  its  almost  entire  disappearance  for  cen- 
turies.    The  combined  efforts  of  Au- 
Christianity's  gustine  and  his  coadjutors  and  suc- 

Eclipse.  cessors,   of  popes  and  emperors,   of 

Paganism  and  Latin  secularism,  of 
ignorant  half-converted  hordes  of  heathen  barbarians, 
and  of  a  hierarchy  that  could  not  employ  it  in  its 
ambitious  schemes,  at  length  crystallized  into  the 
psuedo- Christianity  that  reigned  like  a  nightmare 
over  Christendom,  from  the  Seventh  to  the  Fif- 
teenth Century.  Ignorance,  cruelty,  oppression, 
were  well-nigh  imiversal,  and  the  condition  of  man- 
kind reflected  the  views  held  by  the  church,  of  the 
character  of  God  and  of  man,  of  time  and  of  eternity, 
of  heaven  and  of  hell.  Perhaps  the  darkest  hour  of 
the  night  of  ages  was  just  before  the  dawn  of  the 
Reformation.  The  prevalent  Christian  thought  was 
represented  in  literature  and  art,  and  its  best  expo- 
nents of  the  sentiment  of  a  thousand  years  are  the 
works  of  the  great  artist,  Michael  Angelo,  and  of 
the  equally  great  poet,  Dante.  They  agree  inspirit, 
and  black  and  white,  darkness  and  light,  truth  and 
falsehood  are  not  more  antipodal  than  is  the  theology 
of  Dante  and  Angelo  contrasted  with  the  cheerful 

SRev.  S.  S.  Hebberd. 


THE  ECLIPSE  OF  UNIVERSALISM.  299 

simplicity,  the  divine  purity  of  the  primitive  Chris- 
tian faith.  ' '  That  was  a  dark  night  that  fell  upon 
Christianity  when  its  thought  became  Latinized. 
When  Christianity  came  to  be  interpreted  by  the 
prosaic,  unspiritual  legal  mind  of  Rome,  the  Gos- 
pel went  into  a  fearful  eclipse.  When  the  Greek 
thought  of  Christ  gave  way  to  the  Latin  a  night 
came  upon  the  Christian  world  that  has  extended 
to  the  present  day.  Then  were  born  all  those 
half- views,  distorted  views,  and  false  views  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine  and  Christian  life  that  have  perverted 
the  Gospel,  puzzled  the  human  intellect  and  grieved 
the  human  heart  through  all  the  long  centuries  from 
that  day  to  this."  ^ 

Two  great  men  of  genius  of  the  first  order,  the 
marvelous  artist,  Michael  Angelo,  and  the  equally 

great  poet,  Dante,  on  canvas  and 
The  Caricatures  of  in  verse,  gathered  at  its  culmination 
Dante  and  Angelo.    the  nightmare  of  unbelief  that  had 

darkened  the  preceding  centuries. 
In  Dante  are  "  Christian  heroes  appearing  in  heath- 
enish aspect,  and  heathenish  poets  and  thinkers  half- 
warmed  by  the  light  of  Christianity, "  a  happy  char- 
acterization of  the  hybrid  product  of  truth  and  error 
that  Dante  describes,  and  that  passed  for  Christian- 
ity during  the  Sixteenth  Century,  and  with  modifi- 
cations, has  since  prevailed.  The  "Last  Judgment  " 
of  Michael  Angelo  harmonizes  with  the  thought  of 
the  great  poet.  It  is  a  Pagan  reminiscence — a  hid- 
eous heathen  dream.  The  meek  and  lowly  Man  of 
Nazareth  who  would  not  break  the  bruised  reed  was 

'Rev.  S.  Crane,  D.  D.,  in  The  Universalist. 


300    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

travestied  by  a  monstrous  caricature.  "An  un- 
clothed, broad-shouldered  hero,  with  arms  upraised 
that  could  strike  down  a  Hercules,  distributing  bless- 
ings and  curses,  his  hair  fluttering  like  flames  which 
the  storm  blows  back,  and  his  angry  countenance 
looking  down  on  the  condemned  with  frightful  eyes, 
as  if  he  wished  to  hasten  forward  the  destruction  in 
which  his  word  has  plunged  them  *  *  *  the 
whole  figure  recalls  the  words  of  Dante,  in  which  he 
calls  Christ  '  Sommo  Glove,' — the  most-high  Jupiter. 
This  he  is  here;  not  the  suffering  Son  of  Man,  gen- 
tle as  the  moon,  silent  rather  than  speaking,  with 
the  foreboding  of  his  fate  written  in  his  sad  eyes. 
Yet,  if  a  Last  Judgment  were  to  be  painted,  with 
everlasting  condemnation,  and  Christ  as  the  judge 
who  pronounces  it,  how  could  he  appear  otherwise 
than  in  such  terribleness?  *  *  *  Such  is  Michael 
Angelo's  Last  Judgment.  While  we  cherish  a  feel- 
ing that  at  that  day,  whenever  it  occurs,  the  love  of 
God  will  remit  all  sins  as  earthly  error,  the  Roman 
sees  alone  anger  and  revenge,  as  proceeding  from 
the  Supreme  Being,  when  he  comes  in  contact  with 
humanity  for  the  last  time.  For  the  sinner  is  for- 
ever from  henceforth  to  be  condemned.  It  is  an 
echo  of  the  old  idea,  often  enough  recurring  in  the 
Old  Testament,  that  the  Divine  Being  is  an  angry 
and  fearful  power,  which  must  be  appeased,  instead 
of  the  Source  of  good  alone,  abolishing  at  last  all  evil 
as  an  influence  that  has  beguiled  mankind.  *  *  * 
As  we  look,  however,  at  the  Last  Judgment  on  the 
wall  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  it  is  no  longer  a  similitude 
to  us,  but  a  monument  of  the  imaginative  spirit  of  a 
past  age  and  of  a  strange  people,  whose  ideas  are  no 


THE  ECLIPSE  OF  UNIVERSALISM.  301 

longer  ours.  Dante  created  a  new  world  for  the 
Romanic  nations  by  remodeling-  the  forms  of  heathen 
antiquity  for  his  Christian  mythology. "  *  Materialis- 
tic, gross,  was  the  Christianity  that  ruled  and  op- 
pressed mankind  for  nearly  a  thousand  years,  and 
it  is  reflected  in  the  pages  of  Dante,  and  on 
the  canvas  of  Angelo,  and  it  reverberates  with 
ever  decreasing  echoes — thank  God ! — in  the  subse- 
quent creeds  of  Christendom.  Almost  the  only 
gleam  of  light,  that  relieved  while  it  intensified  the 
blackness  of  the  darkness  of  Christendom  during 
those  dreadful  centuries  was  the  worship  of  Mary. 
The  resurrection  of  Universalism  after  an  eclipse 
of  a  millenium  of  years  is  as  remarkable  as  was  its 
strange  disappearance.  No  better 
Re-birth  of  illustration  can  be   found  than   the 

Universalism.  history  of  our  faith  gives,  of  the  te- 

nacity of  life,  the  immortality,  of 
truth.  It  calls  to  mind  the  language  of  the  German 
sage,  Schopenhauer:  "Doubtless  error  can  play  its 
part,  like  owls  in  the  night.  But  we  should  sooner 
expect  the  owls  to  cause  the  terrified  sun  to  retire  to 
the  East,  than  to  see  the  truth,  once  proclaimed,  to 
be  so  repressed  as  that  ancient  error  might  recover 
its  lost  ground,  and  re-establish  itself  there  in  peace. " 
To  truth  belong  "God's  eternal  years,"  and  her 
emergence  after  so  long  a  disappearance  is  an  illus- 
tration of  her  immortal  vitality.  * '  Crushed  to  earth" 
she  has  "risen  again,"  and  is  fast  being  accepted  by 
a  regenerated  Christendom. 

With  the  invention  of  printing,  the  dawn  of  light 

•♦Grimm's  Michael  Angelo. 


302     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

in  the  Reformation,'' and  the  increase  of  intelligence, 
our  distinctive  form  of  faith  has  not 
The  Dawn  of  only  grown  and   extended,    but    its 

Truth.  leavening  power    has  modified    the 

creeds  of  Christendom,  softening  all 
harsh  theories,  and  unfolding  a  "rose  of  dawn"  in 
all  Christian  lands.  Though,  like  its  author  and  re- 
vealer,  it  seemed  to  die,  it  was,  like  him,  to  come 
forth  to  a  new  and  glorious  resurrection,  for  the  views 
held  by  the  great  saints  and  scholars  in  the  first  cen- 
turies of  Christianity  were  substantially  those  that 
are  taught  by  the  Universalist  Church  for  the  cur- 
rent century,  so  far  as  they  include  the  character  of 
God,  the  nature  and  final  destiny  of  mankind,  the 
resurrection,  the  judgment,  the  purpose  and  end  of 
punishment,  and  other  cognate  themes.  On  these 
subjects  the  great  Church  fathers  stand  as  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Universalisra  of  to-day,  so  that  the 
progress  of  Christian  ideas  that  the  end  of  the  pres- 
ent century  is  witnessing,  is  not,  as  many  think, 
towards  something  new,  but  is  towards  the  position 
of  the  early  Christians  seventeen  hundred  years  ago. 
It  is  a  re-birth,  a  restoration  of  Christianity  to  its 
primitive  purity.  As  Max  Muller  has  recently 
written:  "If  we  want  to  be  true  and  honest  Chris- 
tians, we  must  go  back  to  those  earliest  ante-Nicene 
authorities,  the  true  fathers  of  the  church."^  This 
is  being  done  by  Christians  in  all  branches  of  the 
church.     The  Bible,  which   the  hands  of  ignorance 

'"  In  Germany  alone,  in  six  years  from  the  promulgation  of  the  ninety- 
five  theses  at  Wittenberg,  the  number  of  annual  publications  increased 
twelvefold."    Rev.  W.  W.  Ramsay,  Methodism  and  Literature,  p.  232. 

*Paper  read  at  the  World's  Parliament  of  Religions,  Chicago,  Septem- 
ber, 1893. 


THE  ECLIPSE  OF  UNIVERSALISM.  303 

has  overwritten  into  a  liideous  palimpsest,  is  being 
read  with  something  of  its  divine  meaning,  and  as 
increasing  light  pours  upon  the  sacred  page,  more 
and  more  men  are  learning  to  spell  its  blessed  mes- 
sages correctly,  as  they  were  spoken  or  written  at 
the  beginning — as  theante-Nicene  fathers  read  them 
— in  harmony  with  man's  intellectual,  moral  and  af- 
fectional  nature,  and  with  the  character  and  attri- 
butes of  the  Universal  Father. 


XXIII. 

SUMMARY    OF   CONCLUSIONS. 

A  few  of  the  many  points  established  in  the 
foregoing  pages  may  here  be  named: 

(i)  During  the  First  Century  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians did  not  dwell  on  matters  of  eschatology,  but 
devoted  their  attention  to  apologetics;  they  were 
chiefly  anxious  to  establish  the  fact  of  Christ's  ad- 
vent, and  of  its  blessings  to  the  world.  Possibly 
the  question  of  destiny  was  an  open  one,  till  Pa- 
ganism and  Judaism  introduced  erroneous  ideas, 
when  the  New  Testament  doctrine  of  the  apokatas- 
tasis  was  asserted,  and  universal  restoration  became 
the  accepted  belief,  as  stated  later  by  Clement  and 
Origen,  a.  D.  180-230. 

(2)  The  Catacombs  give  us  the  views  of  the 
unlearned, as  Clement  and  Origen  stato  the  doctrine 
of  scholars  and  teachers.  Not  a  syllable  is  found 
hinting  at  the  horrors  of  Augustinianism,  but  the  in- 
scription on  every  monument  harmonizes  with  the 
Universalism  of  the  early  fathers. 

(3)  Clement  declares  that  all  punishment,  how- 
ever severe,  is  purificatory;  that  even  the  "tor- 
ments of  the  damned  "  are  curative.  Origen  ex- 
plains even  GcJienna  as  signifying  limited  and  cura- 
tive pimishment,  and  both,  as  all  the  other  ancient 
Universalists,  declare  that  "everlasting"  {aionion) 
punishment,  is  consonant  with  imiversal    salvation. 

304 


SUMMARY  OF  CONCLUSIONS.  305 

So  that  it  is  no  proof  that  other  primitive  Chris- 
tians who  are  less  explicit  as  to  the  final  result, 
taught  endless  punishment  when  they  employ  the 
same  terms. 

(4)  Like  our  Lord  and  his  Apostles,  the  primi- 
tive Christians  avoided  the  words  with  which  the  Pa- 
gans and  Jews  defined  endless  punishment  aidios  or 
adialeipton  timoria  (endless  torment),  a  doctrine  the 
latter  believed,  and  knew  how  to  describe;  but  they, 
the  early  Christians,  called  punishment,  as  did  our 
Lord,  kolasis  aionios^  discipline,  chastisement,  of 
indefinite,  limited  duration. 

(5)  The  early  Christians  taught  that  Christ 
preached  the  Gospel  to  the  dead,  and  for  that  pur- 
pose descended  into  Hades.  Many  held  that  he  re- 
leased all  who  were  in  ward.  This  shows  that  repent- 
ance beyond  the  grave,  perpetual  probation,  was  then 
accepted,  which  precludes  the  modern  error  that  the 
soul's  destiny  is  decided  at  death. 

(6)  Prayers  for  the  dead  were  universal  in  the 
early  church,  which  would  be  absurd,  if  their  condi- 
tion is  unalterably  fixed  at  the  grave. 

(7)  The  idea  that  false  threats  were  necessary  to 
keep  the  common  people  in  check,  and  that  the  truth 
might  be  held  esoterically,  prevailed  among  the 
earlier  Christians,  so  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
many  who  seem  to  teach  endless  punishment,  really 
held  the  broader  views,  as  we  know  the  most  did, 
and  preached  terrors  pedagogically. 

(8)  The  first  comparatively  complete  systematic 
statement  of  Christian  doctrine  ever  given  to  the 
world  was  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  A.  D.  180, 
and  universal  salvation  was  one  of  the  tenets. 


3o6    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

( 9 )  The  first  complete  presentation  of  Christian- 
ity as  a  system  was  by  Origen  (A.  D.  220)  and  uni- 
versal salvation  was  explicitly  contained  in  it. 

(10)  Universal  salvation  was  the  prevailing 
doctrine  in  Christendom  as  long  as  Greek,  the  lan- 
guage of  the  New  Testament,  was  the  language  of 
Christendom. 

(11)  Universalism  was  generally  believed  in  the 
best  centuries,  the  first  three,  when  Christians  were 
most  remarkable  for  simplicity,  goodness  and  mis- 
sionary zeal. 

(12)  Universalism  was  least  known  when  Greek, 
the  language  of  the  New  Testament  was  least  known, 
and  when  Latin  was  the  language  of  the  Church 
in  its  darkest,  most  ignorant,  and  corrupt  ages. 

(13)  Not  a  writer  among  those  who  describe  the 
heresies  of  the  first  three  hundred  years  intimates 
that  Universalism  was  then  a  heresy,  though  it  was 
believed  by  many,  if  not  by  a  majority,  and  certainly 
by  the  greatest  of  the  fathers. 

(14)  Not  a  single  creed  for  five  hundred  years 
expresses  any  idea  contrary  to  universal  restoration, 
or  in  favor  of  endless  punishment. 

(15)  With  the  exception  of  the  arguments  of 
Augustine  (A.  D.  420),  there  is  not  an  argument 
known  to  have  been  framed  against  Universalism  for 
at  least  four  hundred  years  after  Christ,  by  any  of 
the  ancient  fathers. 

(16)  While  the  councils  that  assembled  in  va- 
rious parts  of  Christendom,  anathematized  every 
kind  of  doctrine  supposed  to  be  heretical,  no  oecumen- 
ical council,  for  more  than  five  hundred  years,  con- 
demned Universalism,   though  it  had    been   advo- 


SUMMARY  OF  CONCLUSIONS.  307 

cated  in  every  century  by  the  principal  scholars  and 
most  revered  saints. 

(17)  As  late  as  A.  D.  400,  Jerome  says  "most 
people"  {pleriqiie).  and  Augustine  "very  many" 
{qiiam  phirimi),  believed  in  Universalism,  notwith- 
standing that  the  tremendous  influence  of  Augus- 
tine, and  the  mighty  power  of  the  semi-pagan  secu- 
lar arm  were  arrayed  against  it. 

(18)  The  principal  ancient  Universalists  were 
Christian  born  and  reared,  and  were  among  the 
most  scholarly  and  saintly  of  all  the  ancient  saints. 

(19)  The  most  celebrated  of  the  earlier  advo- 
cates of  endless  punishment  were  heathen  born, 
and  led  corrupt  lives  in  their  youth.  Tertullian 
one  of  the  first,  and  Augustine,  the  greatest  of 
them,  confess  to  having  been  among  the  vilest. 

(20)  The  first  advocates  of  endless  punishment, 
MiNUCius  Felix,  Tertullian  and  Augustine,  were 
Latins,  ignorant  of  Greek,  and  less  competent  to  in- 
terpret the  meaning  of  Greek  Scriptures  than  were 
the  Greek  scholars. 

(21)  The  first  advocates  of  Universalism,  after 
the  Apostles,  were  Greeks,  in  whose  mother-tongue 
the  New  Testament  was  written.  They  found  their 
Universalism  in  the  Greek  Bible.  Who  should  be 
correct,  they  or  the  Latins? 

(22)  The  Greek  Fathers  announced  the  great 
truth  of  universal  restoration  in  an  age  of  darkness, 
sin  and  corruption.  There  was  nothing  to  suggest 
it  to  them  in  the  world's  literature  or  religion.  It 
was  wholly  contrary  to  everything  around  them. 
Where  else  could  they  have  found  it,  but  where  they 
say  they  did,  in  the  Gospel? 


3o8    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

(23)  All  ecclesiastical  historians  and  the  best  Bib- 
lical critics  and  scholars  agree  to  the  prevalence  of 
Universalism  in  the  earlier  centuries. 

(24)  From  the  days  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  to 
those  of  Gregory  of  Nyssa  and  Theodore  of  Mop- 
suestia  (A.  D.  180-428),  the  great  theologians  and 
teachers,  almost  without  exception,  were  Universal- 
ists.  No  equal  number  in  the  same  centuries  were 
comparable  to  them  for  learning  and  goodness. 

(25)  The  first  theological  school  in  Christendom, 
that  in  Alexandria,  taught  Un'versalism  for  more 
than  two  hundred  years. 

(26)  In  all  Christendom,  from  A.  D.  170  to  430, 
there  were  six  Christian  schools.  Of  these  four,  the 
only  strictly  theological  schools,  taught  Universalism, 
and  but  one  endless  punishment. 

(27)  The  three  earliest  Gnostic  sects,  the  Basil- 
iDiANS,  the  Carpocratians  and  the  Valentinians 
(A.  D.  1 1 7- 132)  are  condemned  by  Christian  writers, 
and  their  heresies  pointed  out,  but  though  they 
taught  Universalism,  that  doctrine  is  never  con- 
demned by  those  who  oppose  them.  Irenaeus  con- 
demned the  errors  of  the  Carpocratians,  but  does 
not  reprehend  their  Universalism,  though  he  ascribes 
the  doctrine  to  them. 

(28)  The  first  defense  of  Christianity  against  In- 
fidelity (Origen  against  Celsus)  puts  the  defense  on 
Universalistic  grounds.  Celsus  charged  the  Chris- 
tians' God  with  cruelty,  because  he  punished  with 
fire.  Origen  replied  that  God's  fire  is  curative;  that 
he  is  a  "  Consuming  Fire,"  because  he  consumes  sin 
and  not  the  sinner. 

(29)  Origen,  the  chief  representative  of  Univer- 


SUMMARY  OF  CONCLUSIONS. 


309 


salism  in  the  ancient  centuries,  was  bitterly  opposed 
and  condemned  for  various  heresies  by  ignorant  and 
cruel  fanatics,     He  was  accused  of  opposing-  Episco- 
pacy, believing  in  pre-existence,  etc..  but  never  was 
condemned  for  his  Universalism.     The  very  council 
that  anathematized  '♦  Origenism"  eulogized  Gregory 
of    Nyssa,  who  was  as   explicitly  a  Universalist  as 
was  Origen.     Lists  of  his  errors  are  given  by  Me- 
thodius, Pamphilus  and  Eusebius,  Marcellus,  Eu- 
STATHius  and  Jerome,  but  Universalism  is  not  named 
by  one  of  his  opponents.     Fancy  a  list  of  Ballou's 
errors  and  his  Universalism  omitted;     Hippolytus 
(A.  D.  320)  names  thirty-two  known  heresies,  but 
Universalism   is    not  mentioned   as   among    them. 
Epiphanius,    "the   hammer  of  heretics,"  describes 
eighty  heresies,  but  he  does  not  mention  universal 
salvation,  though  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  an  outspoken 
Universalist,  was,  at  the  time  he  wrote,  the  most  con- 
spicuous figure  in  Christendom 

(30)  Justinian,  a  half-pagan  emperor,  who  at- 
tempted to  have  Universalism  olBcially  condemned, 
lived  in  the  most  corrupt  epoch  of  the  Christian  cen- 
turies. He  closed  the  theological  schools,  and  de- 
manded the  condemnation  of  Universalism  bylaw; 
but  the  doctrine  was  so  prevalent  m  the  church 
that  the  council  refused  to  obey  his  edict  to  suppress 
it.  Lecky  says  the  age  of  Justinian  was  "  the  worst 
form  civilization  has  assumed. " 

(31)  The  first  clear  and  definite  statement  of  hu- 
man destiny  by  any  Christian  writer  after  the  days 
of  the  Apostles,  includes  universal  restoration,  and 
that  doctrine  was  advocated  by  most  of  the  greatest 


310     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 

and  best  of  the  Christian  Fathers  for  the  first  five 
hundred  years  of  the  Christian  Era. 

In  one  word,  a  careful  study  of  the  early  history 
of  the  Christian  religion,  will  show  that  the  doctrine 
of  universal  restoration  was  least  prevalent  in  the 
darkest,  and  prevailed  most  in  the  most  enlightened, 
of  the  earliest  centuries — that  it  was  the  prevailing 
doctrine  in  the  Primitive  Christian  Church. 


SUBJECT  AND  AUTHOR  INDEX. 


Abulpharagius,  106. 

"Ad  Autolycum,"  Theophilus,  191. 

Adialeipton,  36-38,  305. 

Adrian,  Emperor,  87. 

Ad  avit,  Jerome,  266. 

Adult.,  Early  Christianity,  49. 

"Adv.  Arium,"  219. 

"Adv.  Man.,"  Serapion,  218. 

Ad  virginem,  234. 

"JEneid,"  Virgil's,  46. 

"Against  Celsus,"   Origan,  22,  56, 

57,  134,  140,  148,  150-154,  159,  162. 
"Against  Priscillianists  and  Orig" 

275. 
Against  Heresies,  83,  210. 
Age  of  Ages,  148. 
Agrippa,  74. 
Aidios,  36,  37,  39,  82,  115,  305. 

Aion-Aionios,"  Hanson's,  36,40, 

150. 
Aionios,  8,  9,  36.  38,  39,  75,  79,  81, 

82,  87,  134,    14S-150,  157,  166,  229, 

236.  241,  245,  264,   274,  283,  284, 

304.  305. 
Allen, "Cont.  Christ.  Thought,"  4, 

19,  20,  94,  122,  127,  272,  276. 
Allen,"First  Three  Periods, "42,  54. 
"Alethes  logos,"  Celsus,  143. 
Alexander,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem, 

119, 172. 
Alexander  the  VI,  52. 
Alexandria,  21, 104, 109,  297. 
"Alexandria,    and    her   Schools," 

Kingsley,  105,  108. 
Alexandrians,  55. 
Alexandrine    Christianity,     Pure, 

25, 110. 
Alexandrine  Fathers,  105. 
Alei-andrine  Library,  105. 


Alexandrine  Schools,  103-105,297. 

Alexandrinus,  Clemens,  111-128. 

Alford,64. 

Allin,    "Universalism    Asserted," 

2,  25,  26,  56,  61,  72,  224,  225,  243 

252,  265. 
■'.Embassador,  Christian,"  252. 
Ambrose  of  Alexandria,  172,  195, 
Ambrose  of  Milan,  245-248, "Epist" 

lib.  i,  246,  "De  fide,"  246. 
Ambrosiaster,  248. 
Amru,  106. 

Anastasis,  167,  229,  252,  288. 
Anaxagoras,  103. 
Ancellus  of  Marcyra,  244. 
Ancient  Law,  Maine,  175. 
"Ancient  Hist.  Universalism,"  1, 

72,  81,  167,  210,  230,  252,  255,  282, 

309. 
Ancient  Univ.  Schools,  173. 
Ancient  Universalists,  Saintly,  307. 
Angelo,  Michael,  298-301. 
Angelo,  M.,  Last  Judgment,  299. 
A  Notable  Family,  226-243. 
Antapodotikos,  239. 
Ante-Nicene  Christ.  Library,  158. 
Ante-Nicene  Age,  261. 
Ante-Nicene  Christianity,   302-308. 
Anthony  of  Egypt,  20. 
Aperanto,  81. 
Aphthartos,  190, 
Apokatastasis,  123,  140,  229,  237, 

288,  304. 
"ApoL,"  Justin,  8,  80. 
"ApoL,"  Tertullian,  193. 
Apollodoius,  46. 

"Apol.  Pamph.,  pro  Origine,"  154. 
"Apologia  VitaSua,"  Newman,  55. 
Apostles'  Creed,  7,  8. 


311 


312     UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 


Apostles'  Immediate  Successors, 

70. 
"Apostles', Teaching  of  Twelve,"  5. 
Arbela,  Georgius,  256. 
Archelaus,  196. 
Aristotle,  41,  50.  113,  284. 
Arnobius,  22. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  18,  28,  54. 
Asbestos,  79.  204. 
Asceticism  of  Oriental  Origin,  20. 
Assemani,  "Bib.  Orient,"  65,  215, 

217,256,258. 
Ateleutetos,  39,  283. 
Athanasias,  6,  57,  58,  62. 
Athanasius,  5, 166,  178,  205,  211,232. 
Athanatos,  37.38,  M,  190. 
Athenagoras,  89,  97. 
Athenodore,  172,  200. 
Augustine,  2,  19,  21,  45,  62,  67, 101, 

179,  247,  250,  262,  271-281,  295,  306. 

307. 
Augfustine  and  Origen  Contrasted, 

272. 
Autolycus,  89. 

Bacon,  50. 

Badger's  "Nestorians,"  222. 

Ballou,  H.,  2d.,  Anc.  Hist..l,  72, 
81, 167,  210.  230,  252,  255,  282,  309. 

Baring-Gould.  93. 

Barnabas,  Epistle  to,  5,  45,  74. 

Barsudaili,  Stephen,  258. 

Bartholomew,  104. 

Basil  the  Great,  19,  56-58,  166,  211, 
226,  227,  231-235. 

Basilides,  90. 

Basilidians,  90.  308, 

Bassora,  Salomo,  of,  256. 

Baur,  "First  Three  Centuries,"  87, 
91,  93, 125. 

Bayle,  "Dictionary,"  138. 

Beausobre,  197. 

Beecher,  Edward,  "Hist.  Doc.  Put. 
Ret.,  2,  4,  8,  10,  38,  39,  57,  173, 
184,  203,  218,  223,  224,  270,  888. 

"Bib.  Crit.,"  Davidson's,  145. 

"Bib..  Max."  Patrum.  76. 

Bigg.  Denies  Origen's  Universal- 
ism,  69. 


Bible  of  Amiens.  Ruskin,  83. 
Bigg,  "Christian    Platonists,"  4, 

55,  57.  69,  91, 123. 149, 165, 173,  280. 
Bigg,  Neo-Platonism,  44,  60,  139, 

143. 
Bingham,  "History,"  103. 
"Blessed  Macrina,"  226. 
"Blessing  of  Death,"  247. 
Blunt,  4, 165. 
Blunt,  Vestiges,  49. 
Boniface,  Pope,  62. 
Bostra,  Titus  of,  244,  245. 
British  "Quarterly  Review,"  166. 
Brown,  Francis,  6. 
Brucker,  "Hist.  Crit.  Philos.,"  112. 
Bryennios  Philotheos,  5. 
Bunsen,    Hippolytus,  4,  8,  77,  83. 

86,  90, 136, 167-182. 
Burnett,  De  Statu  Mort.,  59. 
Butler,  Lives  of  Saints,  4, 103,  226, 

230. 

Caiaphas,  268. 

Canons,    Condemnatory,    Origen 

283-285. 
Canons,  New  Testament,  88. 
"Carmina,"  Greg.,  Naz.,  63. 
Carpocrates,  74. 
Carpocratians,91,  308. 
Cassian,  John,  250-252. 
"Causes  of  Corruption,"  Vaughan, 

67, 
"Catacombs,"  Northcote's,  28. 
Casaubon's,  "Vestiges,"  49. 
"Catacombs,  Testimony  of,"  27,  29, 

304. 
"Catacombs,  de  Rossi,"  28,  30. 
"Catacombs,  of  Rome,"  Kip's,  28. 
"Catacombs,     of     Rome,"     Mait- 

land's.  28, 
Catholic  Hell,  Heathen,  46. 
Catholic  Opinion  ot  Origen,  184. 
Catholic  World,  184. 
Cave,  Lives  of  Fathers,  4,  18,  231, 

233,  234,  247. 
Cave,  Curious  Error  of,  233.  238. 
Cave,  Historia  Literaria,  283. 
Cave,  Prim.  Christianity,  4.  23. 143. 
Celsus,  14, 141,  145. 


SUBJECT  AND  AUTHOR  INDEX. 


313 


Celsus.  Against,  22,  56,  57,  74,  134, 

140, 148, 150-154, 159. 162. 
Chambre,  A.  St.  J.,  1,  72,  282. 
"Christian  Biog.,  Diet,  of,"  3,  90, 

157,209.217,228. 
•'Christian  Doct.  of  Prayer,"  Lee, 

67. 
Christian  History,  Neander,  4,  8, 

10,  48,  55,  57.  72,  91, 103,  199,  208. 

215. 
Christian   History.    First    Three 

Cent.,  Baur.  87,  91,93,125. 
Christian    History,    First    Three 

Centuries,  Lamson,  8, 10, 127. 
Christian    History,    Text    Book, 

Hagenbach,  6. 
Christian  History,    Three    Great 

Periods,  Allen,  54. 
Christian  Institutions,  Stanley,  35. 
Christian    Platonists    of    Alexan- 
dria, Bigg,  123, 181. 
Christ  and  Mankind,    4,  18,  121, 

124,  132,  135,  141,  169. 
Christianity  Defended,  308. 
Christianity, (Rapid  Growth  of,  21. 
Christianity,  Cheerful,  17-25. 
Christianity  Latinized,  299. 
Christ  Preach,  in  Hades.  53,  61,  305. 
Chrysologus,  Peter,  258. 
Chrysostom,  2,  5,  23,  25,  32,  48,  57, 

58,  212,  234,  251,  252,  268,  270. 
Chrysostom,  Synopsis,  5. 
Church,    First    Three    Centuries, 

Baur,  87,  91,  93,  125. 
Church,    First    Three    Centuries, 

Lamson,  8, 10,  127. 
"Circumlocution,"  56,  118. 
City  of  God,  Augustine. 
Clement  and  Origen,  "not    Uni- 

versalists,"  69. 
Clement  ot  Alexandria,  5,  7, 16,  19, 

25,  45,  53,  57,  63,  66.  101,  103,  111, 

128,  296,  305. 
Clementine  Homilies,  87. 
Clement  ot  Rome,  5,  71,  73. 
Commentary,    Mosheim,  4,  8,  23, 

47,  49,  57,  140. 155,  181,  283. 
Condemnatioo  of  Origenlsm,  282- 

295. 


Cone,  Dr.  Orello.  252. 
"Confessions,"     Augustine,    247, 

271,  274. 
"Conflict   of    Christianity,"   Uhl- 

horn,  17. 
"Conquer.  Cross,"  Haweis.  18,  28. 
Constans.  Emp.,  12,  258. 
Constantine,  Emp.,  18,  21,  137,  260. 
Constantius.  178. 
Continuity  of  Christian  Thought, 

Allen,  4,  19,  20,  94,  122,  127,  272, 

276. 
Contra  Celsum,  140. 
Christianity,  a  Greek  Religion.  24. 
Contra  litteras  Fetiliani.  274. 
Conybeare's   Paul,  48. 
Coquerel,      Ath.,      "First      Hist. 

Trans."  9,  25,  35,  48. 
Corruptions  of  Christianity, Priest- 
ley, 1,19,  48. 
Corruptions      of        Christianity, 

Vaughan,  49,  67. 
Corruptions  of  Early  Christianity, 

52,  53. 
Councils,  Early  Statements  of,  15. 
Council,  Fifth  General,  211. 
Council,  never  condemned  Univer- 

salism,  307. 
Council,  Chalcedon,  15. 
Council.  Constantinople.  15,  242. 

282. 
Councils.  Ecclesiastical,  character 

of.  290. 
Council,  Home  Synod,  286. 
Council,  Nice,  16. 
Council,  Rimini,  12. 
Council,  Jerusalem,  282. 
Councils,  Ancient,  15,  282,  290. 
Crane,  Stephen,  D.  D.,  299. 
"Credibility  of  Gospel  History." 

Lardner,4,  168,  182. 
Creed,  Ancient  forms  of,  12. 
Creed,  Apostles',  7,  8. 
Creed,  Earliest,  5,  9. 
Creed,  Earliest,  in  Greek,  16. 
Creed,  Nicene,  11. 
Crombie,  Alex..  Trans.,  158,  178. 
Cudworth,  "Intel.  Philos.."  112. 
Cutts's  "Turning  Points,"  27. 


314       UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 


Cyprian,  7. 

Cyril    of   Alexandria,     "Pasch.," 
etc.,  63,  255. 

Daille,  126.  239. 
Dale,  Dr.  A.  \V.,  158. 
Damnation,  Infant,  276. 
Dante,  30,  298,  299,  302. 
Darkness  at  Advent,  17. 
Davidson,  Bib.  Grit.,  145. 
Dead,  Condition  not  Final,  66. 
Dead,  Gospel  Preached  to,  53,  61. 
Deane,  W,  J.,  "Pseudepigrapha," 

98-100. 
Dean   Mansell's    "Gnostic    Here- 
sies," 58,  91,  93. 
"De  Asceticis,"  235. 
Decadence,  Christian,  278. 
"De  Civitate  Dei,"  273,  276,  277. 
"Decline  and  Fall,"   Gibbon,  21, 

47,211,222. 
"DeEccl.  Theol.,  Migne,  62,82," 

111,  204,  205,  213,  226,  245,  249, 

263,  274. 
Demetrius,  130-137,  167, 168. 
Demosthenes,  234. 
•'De  passione  et  cruce  Dom.,"  62. 
"De  Prsemiis,"  38. 
De  Pressense,  4,  18,  121,  124,  132, 

135, 141,  169, 181. 
"De  Principiis,"  Origen,  57,  140, 

145, 146, 147, 148, 149,  150,  151, 154, 

157, 163,  160, 167, 187,  255. 
De  Rossi,  "Catacombs,"  28,  30. 
Des  Cartes,  50. 

De  Spectaculis,  Tertullian,  194. 
De  Spiritu  Sanctu,  206. 
Deterioration     of      Christian 

Thought,  260,281. 
De  Trin.,  Hilary,  250. 
De  Trinitate,  Augustine,  274. 
De  Usu  Pat.,  239. 
De  vita  funct,  Statu,  40. 
Dialogue    between    Gregory    and 

Macrina,  226. 
8ta  TTupos  KaOapcriv,  120. 
Dlatessaron,  Tatian,  74. 
"Dictionary  Christ.  Biog.,"  8,  90, 


157,  209,  217,  228,  256,  262,  264, 

278,2  8. 
Dictionary,  Historical,  Bayle,  157. 
Didymus.  62,  166,  206,  263. 

AIAAXH  T«N    AfiAEKA 

AnOSTOAriN,  5. 
Dies  Irae,  98. 
Dietelraaier,  4,  61,  287. 
Dlodore  of  Tarsus.  240,  251,255- 

257,  268,  270. 
DiodorusSiculus,  46. 
Diognetus,  Epistle  to, 82. 
Dlonysiul,  200. 
Dionysius,  Halicarnassus,  47. 
"Divine  Leg.,"  Warburton,  46. 
"Doct.    and   Person  of    Christ,'' 

Dorner,  4,  219,  220. 
"Doct.  Hist,   of  Christ."   Shedd, 

20.  197. 
"Doct.      Future       Retribution," 

Beecher,2,  4,  8,10,  38,  39,  57,  173, 

184,  203,  218,  223,  224,  270,  288. 
Doct.,  Mitigation,  53-:54. 
Doct.,  Reserve. 55,  11^305. 
Doederlein,  79,  223,  22* 
Dollinger,  38. 
Domitian,  171-255. 
Dornegan,  39. 
Dorner,  Doct.  Per.  of  Christ,  i, 

219-220, 
Doucln,  169. 
Draper,  "Int.  Devel.  of   Europe," 

222. 

Earliest  Creeds,  5. 
Earliest  Creed,  in  Greek,  16. 
"Early  Days  of  Christ.,"  Farrar,64. 
Early  Christianity,  Adult.,  49. 
Early  Christianity,  Cheerful,  17. 
Early  Christ.  History,  Merivale,50. 
Early    Christians,    character    of, 

224,  225. 
Early  Years  of  Christian  Church, 

De  Pressense,  18. 
Eastern  Ch.,  Stanley,  108,  176,  201. 
Early  Funeral  Emblems,  29. 
Early  Days,  Farrar,  64. 
Ebedjesu  of  Sabra,  256. 


SUBJECT  AND  AUTHOR  INDEX. 


315 


Eclipse  of  Universalism,  296-303. 
Eclipse  of  Christianity,  298. 
Edinburgh  Review,  49,  102. 
Eirgnios.  36,  37,  39. 
Eis  tous  aionas,  7,  75. 
Emblems  in  Catacombs,  29. 
Enchiridion,  Augustine,  179,  273. 
Encyclopoedia  Britannica,  185. 
Endless  Punishment  of  Heathen 

Origin,  36. 
Endless  Punishment,    Origin    of 

Doctrine,  36,  42. 
Enfield.  "Hist.  Philos.,"  47,  48. 
Enoch,  Book  of,  44. 
Epicureanism,  42. 
Epiphanius,  45,  137,  170,   176,  178, 

309,  210,  265,  290,  309. 
Epitaphs  in  Catacombs,  30. 
Erasmus,  234. 
Essays,  Stanley's,  243. 
Esoteric  Doctrines  Held,  57. 
Eternal  Hope,  Farrar,  2,  40,  81. 
Eulogists  of  Origen,  181,  187. 
Eulogies  of    Anc,    Universalists' 

224.  225. 
Eunomius.  287. 
Eusebius,  Hist.  EccL,  5,  7,  19,  45, 

62, 129,  154, 166,  170,  195,  200,  203, 

252,  289,  291,  309. 
Eustathius,    Dem.,    170.  290,   309. 
Evagrius  Ponticus,  254,  257. 
"Exhortation  to  Heathen,"  Clem, 

Alex.,  119. 
"Expositor,  Universalist,"  47. 
Ezra.  45. 

Fabian,  Pope,  172. 

Facts  to  be  Remembered,  289. 

Facundus,  255. 

Family,  A  Notable,  226-243. 

Farrar,  F.  W.— See  "Early  Days," 
"Eternal  Hope,"  "Mercy  and 
Judgment,"  and  "Lives  of 
Fathers,"  2,  4.  33,  34,  76,  108.  126, 
150. 171,  212,  241,  247,  281,  295. 

Fatherhood,  God's,  23. 

Fathers,  Lives  of,  Cave,  4,  18. 

Fathers,  Lives  of,  Farrar,  81. 

Fichte,  50. 


"Filius,  Subjecietur,"  236. 

Fire,  Chastening,  212. 

Fire,  Cleansing,  212. 

Fire,  Consuming,  150. 

Fire,  symbolizes  purification,  117, 

120, 150,  154. 
Firmilian,  169,  170,  200. 
"First  Hist.  Trans.,"  Coquerel,  9, 

25,  35,  48. 
"First   Three    Centuries,"   Baur, 

87,  91,  93,  125. 
"First  Three  Per.,"  Allen.  42,  54. 
Floyer,  Sir  John,  100. 
Forever  and  further,  149. 
Frauds,  Pious,  56,  57. 
Freedom  of  Will,  Origen,  187. 
Freemantle,  Canon,  262. 
Funerals,  Early  Emblems,  29. 

Galla  Placidus,  33. 
Gehenna,  40,  41,  80. 
Gehenna,  Purifying,  134,  152,  153, 

304. 
Georgius  of  .^rbela,  256. 
Germanus,  237,  239. 
Germ,  Greek,  of  An.  Creeds,  16. 
Geschichte  erst  drei  Jahr,  Baur, 

87.  91.  93,  125. 
Gibbon,  Milman's.  21,  47,  211,  223. 
Gieseler,  "Text-Book,"  4.   8,    55, 

56,  136,  209.  268,  283. 
"Glaph.  inEx.,"255. 
Gnostic  Sects,  Three,  90,  95,  308. 
Gnosticism,  91,  112. 
Gospel  in  Hades,  53,  61,  305. 
Grant,   "Mountain     Nestorians," 

216-223. 
Gregory  the  Great,  166-254. 
Gregory  Nazianzen,  11,  57,  68,  63, 

211-215,  234,  259,  270,  289,  290, 
Gregory  Nyssen,  11,  166,  211,  226, 

231-234,  235-243,  292,  309. 
Gregory.  Pope,  the  First,  66. 
Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  7,  201, "231. 
Greek  Fathers  Superior.  25,  806. 
Greek  Germ  of  Earlier  Creeds,  16- 
Greek  New  Test.  Language,  51. 
Greek    Words    Defining    Punish- 
ment, 36-44. 


3i6    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 


Grimm.  Life  of  Angelo,  300-302. 
Grote's  Plato.  55.  58. 
Grotius,  39. 
Guerike,  198. 

Hades.  Restorative.  117. 

Hades,  Gospel  Preached  in.  63,  61. 

Hagenbach,  4,  8,  42,  48,67, 121,  199, 
215,  278, 283,  296. 

"Harnack's  Outlines."  16,  95,  140, 
185. 

Hanson's  "Aion-Aionios,"  36,  40, 
150. 

Hase,  194. 

Haweis's  "Conq.  Cross,"  18,  28. 

Heathen  Origin  of  End.  Punish- 
ment, 36-52. 

Hebberd,  Rev.  S.  S.,  298. 

Hefele.  76,  283,  285,  287. 

Hegel,  50. 

Hell  a  Pagan  invention,  36-58. 

Heraclius,  172,  200,  258. 

Heresies,  83,  210,  308. 

Hermas,  Shepherd  of,  76. 

Hermits,  First  Christian.  20. 

Herodotus.  46. 

Hesiod,  46. 

"Hexapla,"  145,  263. 

Hieronymus,  262,  265. 

Hilary,  45, 166,  249. 

"Hippolytus,"  Bunien's,  8,  83,  90, 
114,  iro,  181, 188,  189-191,  261,  309. 

HistoriaDeorum,  98. 

Historia  Dogmatis  de  Desc.  In- 
feros, 61. 

Historia  Literaria,  283. 

Histoire  d'  I'Ecole  d'  Alex.,  108. 

Historical  Transformations,  Co- 
querel,  9,  25,  35,  48. 

History,  Ancient,  of  Universal- 
ism,  Ballou,  1,  25,  72.  81, 167,  210. 
282,  309. 

History,  Doct.  Fut.  Pun.,  Beecher, 
2,  4,  8, 10,  33.  39.  57,  173,  184,  203. 
218.  223,  224.  270,  288. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Baur, 
87,  91,  93,  125. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Bing- 
ham, 103. 


History,  Ancient  Law,  Maine,  175. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Gi«s- 
eler.  48.  .55.  66,  136,  209. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Guer- 
ike, 198. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Hag- 
enbach, 4,  8,  42,  48,  67, 121, 199, 
215. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Jere- 
mie,  126. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Lam- 
son,  8, 10, 127. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Lard- 
ner,  4,  168,  182, 

History,  Christian  Church,  Lyall. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Mil- 
man,  20,  24,  25,  47,  48. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Mosh- 
eim,  4,  8,  23,  47,  49,  57,  103,  140, 
155,  181,  250. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Nean- 
der,  4,  8,  10,  48,  55,  57,  72,  91, 103, 
199, 208,  215, 

History,  Christian  Church,  Rob- 
ertson, 4,  21,  44,  103, 134,  156, 166, 
212, 257.  261. 

History,  Christian  Church,  Schaff 
4,  20,  31,  50,  131,  166,  252. 

History,  Christian  Church.  So- 
crates, 4, 12,  46,  58,  177. 

History,  Christian  Ch..  Sozomen. 

History  Christian  Church,  Theo- 
doret,  222,  232. 

History,  Christian  Doctrine, 
Shedd,  20,  197. 

History,  Christian  Dogmas,  Ne- 
ander,  250,  251. 

History,  Critical  Phllos.,  Brucker, 
112. 

History,  Endless  Punishment, 
Thayer,  1,  50. 

History, Europ.  Morals,  Lecky,309. 

History.  Manichsans,  Beausobre, 
195,  272. 

History,  Martyrs  and  Ap.,  De 
Pressense,  4,  18,  121,  124,  132, 
135, 141, 169. 

History,  Jews,  Milman,  46. 

Hitchcock,  R.D.,  6. 


SUBJECT  AND  AUTHOR  INDEX. 


317 


History,    Person  Christ,  Dorner, 

218,  220. 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  97. 
"Holy  Eastern    Churcii,"    Neale, 

108,  176,  201. 
Home  Synod,  Mennas,  286. 
"Homilia  Pasch.,"  254. 
Hort's  Two  Dissertations,  H. 
Hours  of  Thought.  Martineau,  35. 
Hovey,  Alvah,   "State  of    Impen. 

Dead,"  70. 
Huet,  (Huetli  Danielis).  4, 150, 160, 

255.  265,  278. 
Hdidekoper,  "Christ's  Descent," 

61, 112. 
Huidekoper,  Indirect    Testimony 

toGos.,61. 

Ideler's  "Olympiodorus,"  284. 
Ignatius,  77,170. 
Ignem  Eeternum,  9. 
Important  Thoughts,  68. 
Indirect  Testimony  to  Cos.,  Hui- 

dekoper,  112. 
Infant  Damnation,  276,  277. 
"Intel.     Devel.       of       Europe," 

Draper,  222. 
Intel.  Philosophy,  Cudworth,  112. 
Introduction,  1. 
In.  to  the  Gospels,  Westcott,  4,  42, 

43.  88,  08,  165, 182. 
Irenaeus,  7,  9,  10,  45.  83-87, 170,  808. 
Isaac  of  Nineveh,  256. 
Isocrates,  234. 
Inst.   Theol.  Christ.,    Doderlein, 

79.  223.  228. 

Jahn,  Archaeology,  46. 

Jameson,  Mrs.,  Legends  of  Ma- 
donna, 52. 

Jeremie,  Hist.  Chr.  Ch.,  126. 

Jesu.  Ebed,  256. 

Jerome,  23,  45,  63,  103,  137,  166, 168, 
170, 187,  250,  36^-268,278,  290,  307, 

"Jewel"  Nestorians,  222. 

"Jewish  Wars,"  Josephus,  36,  37. 

John  the  Grammarian,  106. 

Johannes  Cassianus,  250-252. 

Josephus,  36,  37. 

Judas  Iscariot,  54. 


Justinian.  187.  279.  283,  292,  309. 
Juvenal,  17. 

Kant,  Im.,  50, 

Katharsin.  238. 

Kitto,  Cyclo.,  145. 

Kingsley's  Schools  of  Alex.,  103, 
105, 108,  296. 

Kip's  Catacombs,  28. 

Kid  on  Good  Shepherd's  Shoul- 
der, 28. 

Kirchengeschichte,  Nieder,  208. 

Kolasin,  36,  39,  41.  66,  79. 116.  118, 
123,  283. 

Lactantius,  100. 

Lamson's     "Ch.      First      Three 

Cent.,"  8,  10,  127. 
Landon's  "Manual  of  Councils," 

2S5-287. 
Lardner,  4,  168, 182,  245. 
"La   Politique     des     Remains," 

Montesquieu,  46. 
Last  Enemy  Destroyed,  162. 
Last  Judgment,  Angelo's,299. 
"Latin  Christianity,"    Milman's, 

20,  24-25,  47.  48.  275,  280,  291. 
Latin  Reaction  Injurious,  19. 
Layard's  "Nineveh,"  222. 
Lecky,  239. 

"Lectures,"  Maurice,  124. 
Lee's  Christ.  Doct.  Prayer,  67. 
"Legends     of     Madonna,"    Mrs. 

Jameson,  50. 
Leibnitz,  50. 

Leland's  "Necessity,"  46. 
Leonides,  129. 
Leontius,  150. 
Liddell,  39. 
"Life  and    Resurrection,"   Greg. 

Nyss.,226,  229. 
"Life  of  Blessed  Macrina,"  226- 

231. 
Lives  of    Fathers,   Blunt,  4,   165, 

226. 
Lives  of  Fathers,  Cave,  4,  18,  231, 

234,  238. 
Lives    of  Fathers,   Farrar,  3,    13, 

217,  281 


3i8    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 


Livy,  47. 
Locke,  50, 
Longfellow,  87. 
Lying  Defended,  60, 

Martineau,  "Hours  of  Thought," 

35. 
Mansi,  285. 

Manual  of  Councils,  286. 
Martyrdom  of  Polycarp,  74. 
Martyr,  Justin,  7,22,34. 
"Martyrs    and    Apologrists,"    De 

Pressense,   4,    18,  121,  124,  132, 

135, 141, 169,  181. 
Matter,  I'Ecole    d'Alexandrie,    9, 

108. 
Maurice,  F.  D.,  124. 
Maximinus,  131. 
Maximin,  Emperor,  22. 
Max   Muller,    Theos.    or    Psych. 

Rel.,  56, 115, 186. 
Macarius  Magnes,  248,  257. 
Macrina  the  Elder,  231. 
Macrina  the  Blessed,  2a6-231. 
Magnus,  7. 

Maitland,  "Ch.  of  Catacombs,"  32. 
Magnes,  Macarius,  248. 
Mangey,  38. 
Manichaeans,  195,  272. 
Mansell,  Gnostic  Heresies,  58,  91, 

93. 
"Manual    of    Councils,"   Landon, 

286,  287. 
Mai  Abd  Yeshua,  222. 
Marcellus  of  Ancyra,  844,  290,  309. 
Marcion,  82. 
Mariott,  31. 
Martin,  Pope  L,  258. 
Marius  Victorinus,  249. 
Martial,  17. 

Maximus  the  Confessor,  258. 
Meaning  of  Scrip.  Terms,  36-42. 
Mechri  telous,  82. 
Mennas,  282. 
"Mercy    and  Judgment,"   Farrar, 

2,  40,  41,  66,  150,  295. 
Mercy  and  Judgment  Identical,  163. 
Merivale,  Early  Christ.  Hist.,  50. 
"Meteorologia,"  Aristotle,  284. 


Methodism  and  Literature,  302. 
Methodius,  170,  210,  289,  309. 
Middleton,  Letter  from  Rome,  49. 
Migne.  De  Eccl.  Theol..  62,  82,  111, 

204,   205,  213,  226,  245,  249,  263, 

274. 
Milan,  Ambrose,  245-248,  254. 
Milman's  Gibbon,  21.47,211,222. 
Milman,  Hist.  Christ.  24,  25,  48. 
Milman,  Hist,  Jews,  46. 
Milman,  Kist.  Latin  Christianity, 

20,  275,  280,  291. 
Milner,  21. 

Minor  Authorities,  200-210. 
Minucius  Felix,  25,  45. 
Miracles,  Celsus  and  Orig.  141. 
"Miscellanies,"  Clem.  Alex.,  111. 
Mission  to  Underworld,  53,  61. 
Mitigation,  Doct.  of,  53,  54. 
Modern  Theologians  Equivocal,  59. 
Montesquieu,  "LaPolitique,"  46. 
Mosheim,    4,  8,  23,  4  ,  49,  57,  103, 

140,  155, 181,  252,  283. 
Muller,  Max,  39,  56,  110,  114, 186, 

302. 
Murdock's  Mosheim,  8,  47,252  283. 
Musardus,  8,  47. 

Neale,  176,  201. 

Neander,  4,  8,  10,  48,  55,  57,  72,  91. 

103,  199,  208,  215,  250,  252,  258, 

359.  270,  283. 
"  Neo-Platonism,  "   Bigg,    60,  68, 

139. 
Nero,  18. 

Nestorians,  216  223. 
Nestorian  Liturgies,  218,  222. 
Newman's  "Apol.  Vita  Sua,"  55. 
Newman's  "Hist.  Essays,"  213. 
Newton,  Bishop,  242. 
Nicene  Creed,  4,  11, 12,  211,  242. 
Niceo-Cons.  Creed,  11, 13. 
Nicephorus,  231,  283. 
Nicodemus,  Gospel  of,  63. 
Nieder,  "Kirchengeschichte,"  208. 
"Nineveh,"  Layard's,  222. 
Nisibis,  School  in,  103. 
Nitzsch,   "Christ.  Lehre."  67,  270, 
Northcote's  "  Catacombs,"  28,  30. 


SUBJECT  AND  AUTHOR  INDEX. 


319 


Notable  Family,  A,  226-243. 
Norton.  Statement,  112. 
Not.  at  Frag.  Magnes,  249. 
Novatian,  "Trinity,"  25. 
Numa,  46,  47. 

CEconomy,  Doctrine  of,  53. 

CEcumenical  Council,  Fifth,  211. 

Oehler,  Dr.  Franz,  229. 

Olshausen,  225, 

Omar,  106. 

Olympiodorus,  284. 

Olympius.the  Monk,  Dialogue, 226. 

OpsopcEus,  97. 

Oracles,  Sibylline,  14. 

"Oratio  Catechet.  Magna,"  Greg. 

Nyssen,  241. 
"Oratio  de  Mortuis,"Greg.  Nyssen, 

242. 
Oriental  Asceticism,  20. 
Oriental  Liturgies,  218,  222. 
Origen,  7.  9,  14,  19,  22,  25,  41,  45, 

53,  55,  56,  57,  62,  63,  68;  12S-187. 
Origen,  Second,  201,  235,  296,  306, 

808. 
Origenism.  Condemnation  of,  282- 

295. 
Origenism,  210. 

Origin  Doct.End.  Punishment,  36. 
Orosius,  273. 
"Outlines,"  Harnack,  95. 
"Oxford  Tracts  for  Times,"  192. 

Padeiai,  116,  118. 

"Paedag."  Clem.  Alex.,  116.  118, 

120, 123. 
Palladius,  200. 
Pamphilus,    Apol.     pro    Origine, 

154, 166  170.  202,  263,  289,  309. 
Panarion,  210. 
Travra  iv  ttSctiv,  209 
Pantaenus.  103-4. 
Pantheism,  113. 
Pastor  of  Hermas,  76. 
"Patrologiae,"  Migne's,  62,  82,  HI. 

204,  205.  213,  226,  263,  274. 
Paul  of  Thebes,  20. 
Pericles,  234. 
"Perpetua,  Acta  St.,"  66. 


Persecution,  Work  of  Augustinl' 

anism,281. 
Petavius,  212. 
Peter  of  Sebaste,  226,  228. 
Pfaffian  Fragment.  86. 
Pharisees,  Opinions,  86. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  197. 
Philo  Judaeus,  Views  of,  87,  38. 
Philosophumena,  189. 
Philotheos  Briennius,  5. 
Photius,  210,  239. 
Pierius,  201. 
Pious  Frauds.  56,  57. 
Plato,  19,  39,  47,  55,  58, 112. 
Platonism.  113. 
Pliny,  17,  21,  35. 
Plumptre,  Dean,  4,  41,  61.  65,  67, 

167, 182,  217,  242,  264,  288. 
Plutarch, 46. 
Polybius,  46. 
Polycarp,  73. 
Pond,    Dr.'s,   Misrepresentation, 

177. 187. 
Ponticus,  Evagrius,  254. 
Post-Nic.    Age  Deteriorated,  261. 
Prayers  for  the  Dead,  53, 65,  305. 
Priestley,  Corruptions  of  Chrlst'y, 

48. 
"Primitive  Christianity,"  Cave,  4, 

23, 143. 
Primitive     Christianity,      Horta- 
tory, 304. 
Procopius,  290. 
"Pseudepigrapha,"   Deane's,     98, 

100. 
Ptolemy  Soter,  106. 
Punishment,  G|;pek  word  for,  86,37, 

39,  41,  66,  79. 110,  118,  123,  283. 
Punishment  not  Endless,  82. 
Punishment  Purificatory,   17,  127, 

238,  304. 

TTVp  pOVLKOV,    17. 

Pusey,  Concessions  ol,  257. 

Quadratus,  87. 
Quarterly,  British.  166. 
Quarterly,  Universalist,  1,  251,  252, 
268,  297. 

Ramsay,  W.  W.,302. 


320    UNIVERSALISM  IN  THE  EARLY  CENTURIES. 


"Rationalism  in  Europe,"  Lecky, 

239.  309. 
Redepenning,  "Origines,"  173. 
"Refutation of  Heresy,"  Hippoly- 

tus,  8,  83,  90,  114,  170,    181, 188. 

189-191,  261,  309. 
"Reliquiai  Sacrae,"  Routh,  171,  203. 
Renaudot's  "Oriental  Liturgies." 

221. 
Reserve,  Doctrine  of,  55, 118,  305. 
Reuss,  180. 

Review,  Edinburgh,  49,  102. 
Rhet.,  Aristotle,  41,  50,  284. 
Righteous      Pray     for       Wicked 

Dead,  96. 
Robertson,   Hist.,  4,    21,    44,   103, 

134, 156,  212,  257,  261. 
Romulus,  46. 
Rosenmuller,  274. 
Rothe,  76. 

Routh,  "Reliq.    Sacrae,"  171,  203. 
Rufinus,  7.  72,  214,  239,  255,  262. 
Ruskin,  John,  33. 

Saints,  Sins  of,  4,103. 

Salomo  of  Bassora.  256,  257. 

Sand,  George,  281. 

Savonarola,  52. 

Sawyer,  Thos.  J.,  D.  D.,  1. 

Schaff,  Hist.  Christ.  Ch.,  4,  20,  81. 

50, 131.  136,  166,  212,  240,  252,  261, 

270,  278,  2r9. 
Schelling,  50. 

Scholars,  Test,  of,  to  Origen,  182. 
Schools,  Theological,  103,  105. 
Schopenhauer,  301. 
Scripture  Terms,  Meaning  of,  36. 
Seneca,  47. 

Septimus  Severus,  129. 
"Sermon.  Catech.  Magnus,"  237. 
Sharpe,  Samuel,  75. 
Shedd,  W.  T.,  Errors  of,  197. 
Shedd,  W.T.,  Hist.  Christ.  Doct.. 

20, 197,  252. 
Shepherd  of  Hermas,  76. 
Sibylline  Oracles,  14,  57,  98- 102. 
Sin,  Penalties  of,  212. 
Sixtus,  Carus,  31. 
Sodom  Restored,  265. 


Socrates.  "Eccl.  Hist.,"  4, 12.  46,58 
177. 

Solom.  Parab.,38. 

Solon,  55. 

Spinoza,  50, 

Spiridion,  281. 

Spirits   in  Prison,  Plumptre,  61, 
167,  289. 

Stanley,  Dean,  "Eastern  Church," 
108. 176,  201. 

Stanley,  Dean,  Christ.  Inst.,   35. 

Stanley,  Dean,  Essays,  243. 

"  Statement  of  Reasons,"  Norton, 
112. 

"  State  Impen.  Dead,"  Hovey,  70. 

Statius  Quadratrus,  73. 

Stephanas  of  Edessa,  256. 
Stephens's  "Thesaurus."  88. 
Stieren's  "Irenaeus."  94. 
Strabo,  47. 
"Stromata."  Clem.  Alex.,  57,  113. 

116  117. 118. 120. 123. 
"Stromata,"  Origen's,63. 
Subjection  Universal,  160. 
Suetonius,  17. 
Sunday,  Primitive,  21. 
Summary  of  Conclusions,  304-310. 
Suppressio  Veri,  Cave.  233,  238. 
Suppressio  Veri.  Lecky,  309, 
Suppressio  Veri.  Shedd.  197. 
Swete,  Prof.  J.  B.,217. 
Sweetness  and  Light,  19. 
Symbols  in  Catacombs,  29. 
Synesius  Defends  Lying,  60. 
"Synopsis,"  Chrysostom's.  5. 

2IBYAAIAK0I    XPHMOI 

96. 

Tacitus.  17,  35. 

Taine,  17. 

Tamerlane,  218. 

"Tarquin  of  Jonathan."  40. 

Tatian,45.  74. 

Tatius,  46. 

Teaching  of  Twelve  Apostles,  6. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  3. 

Tertullian,  7,  10,  11,  21,  22,  45,  62, 

66, 191, 193,  307. 
Testimony  of  Catacombs,  27,  29. 


SUBJECT  AND  AUTHOR  INDEX. 


321 


Testimony  of  Scholars,  182. 

"Text  Book."  Gieseler's.  48,  55,  68, 
136,  209. 

"Text  Book,"  Hagenbach's,  4,  8, 
42,48.67,121,199,215. 

Thanaton,  38,  74. 

Thayer,  T,  B.,  D,  D.,  50.  251. 

Thecla,  228. 

Theoctistus,  172. 

Theognostus,  201. 

Theotinus,  179. 

Theodorus,  214. 

Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  218,  219, 
223, 240,  252.  268. 

Theodoret    the  Blessed,  222,  232. 
252,  254. 

Theodosius,  211,  214. 

Theological  Schools,  103-4,  308. 

Theology.  Doederlein,  223,8. 

Theology  of  Universalism,  50. 

Thesaurus,  Stephens',  38. 

Theophilact,  169. 

Theopilus,  170, 176. 

Theoph.  of  Alex.,  60, 191,  285.  290. 

Theophilus  of  Antioch.  89. 
"Theosophy.  or  Psych.  Rel.."  58, 

115. 186. 
Third  Century  Group.  188. 
Thomas  of  Celano.  98. 
Three  Periods,  Allen,  42, 54. 
Tillotson,  Equivocal,  59. 
Tillemont.  244,  245. 
Timoria.  36,  37,  39, 41. 116, 118, 123. 
Timotheus  II,  65. 
Tischendorf,  75. 
Titus  of  Bostra.  244-5 
Transition  of  Christianity,  260. 
True  Discourse.  Celsus,  143. 
Trypho,  Dialogue,  78. 
Turning  Points,  Cutts.  27. 

Two  Dissertations.  Hort,  14. 
Two  Kindred  Topics,  61. 
Tytler,  Univ.  Hist..  49. 

Uhlhorn,     Conflict    Christ,     with 
Paganism,  17,  65,  68,  143. 


Ueberweg,  250,  259. 

Underworld, Christ's  Mission  to,  61. 

Unity  in  Diversity,  220. 

Universal  History,  Tytler,  49. 

"Universalism  Asserted."  Allin, 
2,  25,  26.  56,  61,  72,  224,  225.  248, 
265. 

Universalism,  Attempts  to  Sup- 
press. 282-295. 

Universalism,  Anc.  Hist.,  Ballou, 
1,  25,  72,  81.  167,  210,  255,  282,  309, 

Universalism,  Eclipse  of,  296-305. 

Universalism  of  Greek  Origin,  25. 

Universalism.  many  roads,  to  220- 
257. 

Universalism,  Resurrection  of,  300. 

Universalism  Submerged,  293. 

Universalism  Never  Condemned, 
286-289. 

Universalist  Expositor,  47. 

Universalist  Quarterly.  1.  52,  65, 
82,  251,  252,  268,  297. 

Universalist.  The,  299. 

Unsuccessful  Attempts  to  Sup- 
press Universalism,  282. 

Usher  and  Wake,  66. 

Valentine,  92. 
Valentinians,  92,  308. 
Vaughan's  Corruptions,  49,  67. 
Victorinus,  Marius,  249. 
Virgil's  iEneid,  46. 

Wake,  Arch.  66. 
Warburton,  Div.  Leg.  46., 
Westcott,  4.  42,  43.  88,  98, 165, 188. 
"What  is  of  Faith,"  Pusey,  257. 
Whittier,  J.  G.  97. 
Wigglesworth,  M.,  277. 
Windet,  40. 

Withrow.  Catacombs,  28. 
Wordsworth,  Dean.  188. 

Zoroaster,  20. 

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